Based on the photos in your ideabook, I suspect nearly all of the damage was there prior to refinishing. Douglas-fir is a soft wood (and literally, known as a "softwood" as opposed to "hardwood"). The scratches and splinters look like they were there long before any recent refinishing. Keep in mind that putting a beautiful, clear finish on top of scratched wood typically accentuates scratches or sanding marks that were already there but less visible without a shiny finish.

You might be able to test whether a lower-gloss finish draws less attention to the scratches. But that won't change the dark spots, with are almost certainly deeper than skin-deep in the wood (and caused by long-term aging and/or contact with nails, coverings, etc.). That's the patina of old wood. (Incidentally, not every photo looks like Doug-fir to me, but that could be due to color differences on my screen.)

I would not blame the refinishers for anything that was obvious in the photos. To get rid of all of the scratches, they would have had to sand more of the original wood off - and based on the fact that I can see nails that are flush with the surface of the wood, they probably took off as much as they thought they could get away with. Old wood floors, especially soft ones like Doug-fir, cannot be sanded and refinished indefinitely. At a certain point you can't remove any more material without hitting nails everywhere. Then your only real option is to get new flooring.

The things that you can mitigate in that floor are the putty colors, which could be scraped, refilled, and touched up with topcoat, and the areas with splinters. Repairs to the splintered areas might very well end up being more obvious than their current appearance. For the transition between two rooms, that piece with tons of cracking and splintering might have to be replaced.

I personally love your floors. I'd see where the splintering is a safety issue and deal with that, but leave the rest as is. I think they are gorgeous.

Thank you, salex. I also think they’re gorgeous, and I don’t at all mind those surface characteristics that come from a fir floor (things like bruising, nail holes, etc). I’m honestly ok with anything that had been there that just couldn’t be safely sanded out. But I am having some issues with the things that I don’t believe were there before, the biggest being the deep scratch marks (which I believe are swirl marks from the sander), and they are everywhere. They’re extremely rough. I walked through the house with my socks on and my socks kept catching on them, sort of snagging on them. I had lived on these floors for 5 years without ever having noticed that happening. Also, every permitter is rough, I don’t believe they edged anything correctly. I never had an issue cleaning the floors when I used to live there, now I imagine it’s going to be a major challenge (imagine taking a rag to an unfinished piece of wood).

I can deal with the look (not so much the putty, I don’t know why that seemed acceptable to them), but I’m having a hard time imagining trying to comfortably live on and care for these floors. I’m into a patina, not into gouges that were possibly caused by the sanding process or machine.

The staining and the hairline cuts are patina. The deep gouge is from their rotary sander and the circular marks are from the edging machine in the hands of unskilled operators.

HALLETT & Co., thank you for letting me know your professional input. What hairline cuts are you talking about that are patina? Would you mind letting me know in reference to some of the photos (like, do you mean photo numbers 5, 13 & 15, for instance)? I’d love to have a better understanding of what’s going on here.

Here you go. Most of the damage you have is laziness on the part of the refinishing company, I pulled out a couple that I feel are just patina that they would not have been able to address with sanding. This looks like a C- flooring job.

You've got an old funky floor. Throw down some rugs and call it good please.

Thank you so much, H&Co. This is exactly the kind of real information I’ve been searching for. If you wouldn’t mind going into the convo a bit further, I’d really appreciate it.

I’m wondering if the below pic is also showing patina (I assume it is, but wanted to confirm) -

Also, I’m not sure what the example below was caused by. From your earlier explanations, it looks to me like edge marks. However, this (and many others like it) aren’t against any edges. So would you say this was caused by the drum sander? -

I’m not sure where to go from here. I’d obviously like to get these problems corrected, but there’s a lot of complications involved. I’m really concerned there’s not enough wood left to do a full resand (and if that could even sand out the majority of damage). Though I found an exposed area of wood at a radiator pipe, I wasn’t able to measure it (it seems about 3/4” or so). I took a pic, but I’m not sure if you can possibly judge it from that -

The owner and his assistant did the entire job, until the last sand and coat of poly where apparently it was just the assistant. Is it possible all these errors were made at that final stage? I’m just not sure if we should be trusting the owner himself to correct any of this (if that’s even a possibility).

Thank you again for your time today, you’re really awesome.

Hey Joseph Corlett, a large amount of money wasn’t spent so these beautiful floors could be covered with rugs.

I like to make analogies between my old house and an old man or woman: Getting 50 or 70 year old wood floors refinished is like bringing a middle aged person home from the hospital and giving them PT until they spring back like new. Getting 140 year old floors refinished is like bringing a 90 year old person home from the hospital and needing round the clock care and knowing you might have to call in hospice.

I owned a home with 160 year old floors. The honest and good floor refinishers I spoke with told me I needed a flooring restoration professional, not just a refinisher. I got enough quotes and people to look at them that I could tell who was going to do a crappy job and who was going to turn me down because they couldn't do a great job with what was there. None of the top notch restoration pros wanted to do my medium sized home in the city as most did massive projects on gigantic historic estates out in the burbs with tremendous budgets. They were usually hired by architectural firms and contractors who specialize in this.

Our floor had splinters, gouges, nails, you name it. There was not much left to be sanded and little gloss left on top. Many who came to give me a quote said it needed to be replaced, which kind of killed me, and I never had the heart to do it. Unfortunately, it took me until we were staging the house for sale to find a good solution:

I had leftover milled planks of heart pine from the 1850's that I had used for our kitchen floor. A handyman used the extras to cut in patchworks to the really damaged areas. I then mixed stains to get a good color match and stained the patches myself. (Sometimes you can take flooring up from closets to make patches, but that had already been done in our house and no good closet flooring was left.)

I colored in discoloration and gouges with stain pens. It was like a huge coloring book and incredibly meditative and satisfying.

I purchased very large jute rugs from Facebook Marketplace that probably "fell off a truck". The colors blended well with my floors, covered the most offending markets, yet still left enough of the historic floors visable to be appreciated.

After 9 years of living in a house where I had to tell guests - "Don't take off your shoes or you might get a Civil War splinter!" I was able to now be barefoot in my own home.

Ultimately, your pros butchered parts of your floors. But I don't know that someone else would have done a much better job with such soft historic floors, and these folks might not be able to do any better of a job trying to repair their mistakes. And, nobody would have made them look new. You've gotta embrace imperfection when you live in a house that is so old. I feel your pain!

Thank you once again, H&Co. Really appreciate your knowledge here.

Kendrah, I love your analogies. I want to respect my old home and be the steward that it deserves. After many generations of being an uncared for rental property, the floors are one of its only features that truly offer a glimpse into its past. So it was pretty painful to discover that it had been butchered in any way. I’m upset that we didn’t find a pro who could have had a gentler hand, but knowing your own experience does make me feel a bit better. So thank you!

Already sounds like you are carrying out your intentions of good stewardship. It can certainly be a challenge.