I finally decided that I was never going to get the floor perfect with sanding and that it was finally good enough. So today, I bought a can of stain and decided to just put it on to see what happens. I was going to just stain the one side of the floor that looked lighter, but then decided to do the whole thing. I didn’t really wipe any off on the lighter side of the floor, but did wipe off right away on the darker side. When I go back tomorrow, I’ll see how it turned out. If it’s ok, then I’ll put on the finish coat. If it’s not ok, I’ll probably also put on the finish coat because I have no idea how to fix this.

My one concern is that I’m using an oil-based stain/finish. I used a new paint brush to put the stain on, but didn’t really know how to clean it. I looked this up when I got home and I may have destroyed the brush. Since I was uncertain how to use mineral spirits to clean the brush, I just left the brush in a bucket in water, which I probably should not have done. It was pretty cold today, so I didn’t want to work outside, but that seems to be necessary with mineral spirits. I guess I’ll find out how the brush is tomorrow. I’ll see about posting some before/after pictures of the floor.