Hi there!

My husband and I are in the very beginning stages of remodeling an old house.. I'm told this house is possibly from the 1800's, but not totally sure yet. Plan to visit our very very small town's library to see if I can find any more information on our house.

Anyway, the house has hardwood floors.. I happened to take a few photos of the upstairs. (House is 2 stories with possibility of 3rd story) I'm hoping someone would be able to tell me what kind of wood these floors are and how to care for them properly. I read somewhere NOT to have them sanded and refinished because this could (will?) ruin them. I'm fine with that-- but do have 3 children under 5 years old, so I would like to make them safe.

See photos below..







Thanks for your help in advance!

You have a Douglas fir sub-floor. The scraped area looks like vertical grain flooring. Plain sawn fir was intended to be covered with wall to wall or linoleum.
Fir is not very hard, about half as hard as red oak. Vertical grain fir was used for porch flooring because it is pretty stable when it gets damp in the weather.
VGDF, vertical grain Douglas fir, is quarter-sawn and would hold up much better than your plain sawn and is sometimes stained an varnished. Plain sawn is more susceptible to splintering.

There's quite a few fir floors out here in the older parts of town, intentionally used for the primary flooring since we had a mill up on the mountain long ago which supplied most of it. I think it looks great.
Not sure who told you NOT to have it sanded and finished but they would be wrong. Just do a search for fir flooring, its beautiful. But is soft.

I sanded our fir floors when the kids were little.
It was the second time that they were sanded, at least. Some of the nail heads started to show where the flooring crossed a joist. Later, since the floor was getting thin, the top of the groove side of the plank.
Now when I come to look at an old fir floor that has been sanded before I recommend installing another strip of wood between the floor joists on the under side of the floor is it is accessible. This helps the planks share weight between them as they move together not relying on just the tongue to spread the weight.
One-half inch plywood cut into 2 inch wide strips and fastened with a bead of sub-floor adhesive to the under side of the floor will make the floor stronger and help keep your floor investment longer.