I made great progress in the dining room last night, which is quite impressive since I left work ready for a nap.  I didn't do anything else with the stairs, instead I turned my focus to the main floor.  I cleared out enough of the furniture and decor as to rip up all of the carpet and padding from the main floor and closet.  I also pulled all of the staples (except in the closet) from the main floor.  The area by the entry and stairs is pretty nice looking, but there is some damage to the wood out in the middle of the dining room.  I've been watching some youtube videos and getting some ideas and confidence on doing the sanding and hole patching on my own and I'm psyched.  Let's hope that some of the discolored/damaged parts sand out well.
 
Lots of tack strips are in my future at this point but I'm also looking forward as there are a few items I need to figure out.  For example, at the entry there was a vinyl tiled area.  It looks like it's lifted up from the wood floor a bit, so I wonder if there is wood under there as well.  Not sure what I'll do there.  I also need to figure out the transition at the top of the stairs to the awful carpet that is up there.  I know I can't be so lucky as to think there is hardwood up there as well, or I think that carpet would be coming up too.  I do want to replace that carpet, so maybe I'll put that task into a contractor's hands, but where on earth do I move all of that junk to for them to work?!  I have dreams of a lovely area rug for under the dining room table floating in my mind, but I guess I need to figure out what the "right" size is as to not have it too small or too big for reasonable usage of the furniture.
 
My goal for this week is to get the tack strips up, which means I need to go buy the right type of pry bar, and to scrub the hardwood to get the last of the grit from the carpet up.  I think that would make it feel like I'm a lot further than it is.