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**christieep** refinishing hardwood floors
http://chezburbacher.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html
Here's a link to a blog I set up when we first moved in, but I fizzled out of blog upkeep when our projects were more 'few and far between'. I might add some stuff this weekend though.
Anyway, the link should take you to our floor refinishing photos.
My thoughts for anyone considering it DIY
-My biggest piece of advice is to a specialty store like Sherwin Williams and just say "We're looking into refinishing our floors". The folks there seemed to know everything, and every piece of advice they had worked like a charm. And their wood stain is unbelievably awesome. Home Depot's DIY website is awesome (A GREAT place to start), and provided a great outline, but when we went in store, they only carry Minwax (their poly is good, but their stain is terrible... lesson learned 
) and everyone we spoke to in store about floors didn't have the greatest confidence.
- we did 2 rooms, total cost out of pocket was about $500, but we purchased some more high end stain and polyurethane. Included in that is about $200 towards the sander and all the sanding paper pads. From asking around (but not a formal estimate on our rooms), it would have probably been around $2000 to get them professionally done.
- From the day we pulled up the carpet, till the day of the last poly coat was about 4-5 days... if my memory serves me right, 2 of those 'days' were actually 'nights' working on the floors, as we both decided to go to work those days. It was like another 3-4 days before we could move our furniture back in. You can actually walk on the floors (in socks) 24 hours after you finish the poly, but they aren't cured for like 3 days, so if you would drop something, or scoot a chair, you could do some damage. We carefully started moving some stuff in like a day earlier than we should have, and everything was fine, except we made one little marking in a spot. oh well.
- The labor is a little tough, and tiring, but not impossible. I never hit a point of "oh crap, what did we do, I can't finish this". I slept like a rock each night though.
- The smells are pretty rough. Wait till spring when you can open all the windows, and you won't freeze out of your house (also needs to be warm enough or the floors will take longer to cure). There was one night of the process where I felt like I should be wearing a haz mat sign.
I could go on and on. I guess if you do start to consider it more let me know and I could talk your ear off 
Re: **christieep** refinishing hardwood floors
THANK YOU!!!!
I am thinking of making it my summer project, I teach so I am off work and working on the house is pretty much what I do all summer if I'm not taking classes. Our entire house is hardwood (except kitchen and bathroom) about 1,300 sq ft. to refinish. I think I may reach the "oh crap I can't finish this" point, but I know my dad and FIL will come to my rescue when Ken and I get frustrated.
Again, thank you so much!!!!