My step-daughter just bought a home. A 1908 Victorian in pretty nice shape except for the wood floors in the living area. The previous owner ‘refinished’ the beautiful solid maple field surrounded by an oak border 2 feet wide. They threw down, literally from the looks of it, a dark oak stain over the maple and oak wood and then mopped the floor with polyurethane leaving 1/4 inch high runs in a lot of areas. My daughter’s husband wants to tear out the floor in both rooms and put down Pergo flooring. I feel it’s a crime to destroy good solid wood floors 100 years old and throw down ‘engineered’ flooring to replace the original. However, I don’t know what you would use to remove huge puddles of poly, if that’s what it is, on about 500 sq. feet of floor. I can fix the wavy floor with some floor joist sistering. I can do the sanding needed to remove the cruddy staining job. I just don’t know how to get down to the original wood floor in the first place. I need to know how to verify that I’m working with a poly top coat and, if so, how to remove it safely without poisoning the pets or kids, or myself! Sanding isn’t an option, I’d go through about 100 sheets in the two rooms. Please, I need to save the floors and the kids from doing something amazingly stupid.
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