E spent the better part of this week wrestling a drum sander and edger to take off the old finish and stain. Afterwards, the grain was raised and we went over it with hand sanders in preparation for final finish.
This as after sanding and and after going over the floor with rags to remove dust.
We chose to use a water-based polyurethane finish. It goes on great, clean up is easy and is mostly odor free. Unless someone else applied it, it couldn't have been much easier. This is after coat three.
Between coats (it takes about two hours to dry), I planed down some rough lumber for making new casings for the doorways. The big board at the left weighed about 35 pounds. I had to be careful that it didn't tip over the planer. E is in the background stripping paint from doors.
Here's the outfeed side of the planer with a try square for scale.
This is a shot of the big board. All the wood is poplar. It works reasonably well (don't think about staining it--it will get badly blotchy), but is very soft for a hardwood.