The down and dirty truth about refinishing hardwood floors that no one will tell you.
1)Do not not leave a board un sanded.
2) Yes, wipe the stain off of the hardwood after smearing it on.
3) Do use oil based polyurethane.
4) Yes, you can sleep in your home using oil based……at your own risk.
We refinished the hardwood floors in our first home and half of the hardwoods in our current home. You would think anything we did wrong with the first (they were pretty much perfect) would be resolved in the second go around. That was not the case…
Round one we were able to stay with my in laws while completing the hardwood floors. This time we did not have the convenience of a family member and didn’t see the need to splurge on a hotel room. I read and read blogs and articles regarding oil vs. water based poly. I finally decided we would do the water based poly and apply three coats. It looked great at first and remained to look until we had the other half professionally.
The kitchen and den area of our home was done by a local guy, who refers to himself as Duck. We opened up the den and kitchen area to one another, so Duck had to bring in wood to integrate the new with the old. We figured since he was already having to do so much to the kitchen floor repair, he could refinish the floors also.
It finally came time to explain to him the stain I had concocted in the other area’s. The floor stain was 1/2 dark walnut and 1/2 grey. It took him a hard minute to understand, but he got it. I love this mixture for old 
floors with a dark stain, because it takes a lot of the red out. We had told Duck that we had used water based semi gloss in the other areas, because we were living through this chaos. He did not want us to use the water base again especially now we would be dealing with a kitchen floor, which equals water.
I went back and forth with the need to have the stronger protectant in the kitchen and whether it was safe to sleep with fumes. Well, we ended up biting the bullet and did it. My husband cranked up a window unit in the guest bedroom for three solid nights. It was the best decision ever. Now he needs to come back and redo the living and dining, because the finish it so dull and just didn’t last.
{Do not in any way recommend exposing yourself to harsh fume’s}
There were several things that Duck had showed and explained to us, that made living in our home for the three nights work. It was a typical August in the south when he refinished our floors and he made us turn our air conditioner OFF, so the stain and poly would dry. Having the air off allowed us to separate ourselves into a back bedroom without the fumes circulating into the room. This probably would be harder if our home was a more modern “open concept”, than our current style.