I did that years ago, and am very happy with the results. Many people have complemented me on it. Once the carpet was gone, I rented a sander and sanded the floor. What I rented was a drum sander, very tricky to keep from leaving gouge marks. You might check around and see if you can find a belt sander. If you can find one, it might be a task to leave to a GOOD professional. I also rented a disk sander for touching up the edges and spent a big chunk of time removing the worst of the gouges the drum sander left. I wasn't fully satisfied with the job, but everybody that has seen it has raved about it.
We then applied a moisture cure urethane finish. Don't confuse it with the tung oil based urethanes or latexes. This is a totally synthetic material and one of the toughest materials you can buy. It cures by drawing moisture out of the air and actually chemically bonds to the wood. The only source I know of for it is Rexthane from Sherwin Williams. Unfortunately, it only comes in an ultra high gloss. It is really meant for sealing concrete and carries a ''not for residential use''' label. It contains horrible smelling solvents, xylene and ether esters. They are not good for you. Use good ventilation. If something lists alcohol, it is an inferior material. It is an incredibly tough material. I first used it on wood toys I made for my kids. Then I used material I made while working as a chemist for Ashland Chemical.
The stuff is very quick drying. You can put 2 coats on the same day and move the furniture back in the next. the weekend we did ours, our church was having a campout. We put a coat on Friday night before going. We came back Saturday morning for a second coat, and the house was tolerable by Sunday evening. We really wanted a finish that would take abuse.
Since we applied the finish, we have housebroken the Shepherd and 8 Labs. Nothing touches it.
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