A small strip of the top veneer layer of an engineered hardwood floor (maple, I believe) in the kitchen has come off (see picture). Looking for ideas on how to repair. There are no leftover boards from when the floor was originally installed. Here's some ideas I've come up with: 1) Patch with some sort of wood patch (recommendations?). I have low confidence that this would even be marginally acceptable though, from an aesthetic viewpoint, but would love to be proven wrong. 2) Remove a board from under the fridge and use it to replace the bad boards. 3) Get some thin maple veneer and replace just the top maple veneer layer of the bad boards. Is this ever done, or even possible? Unfortunately, this board, as you can see from the picture, is partially underneath the sink base cabinet, so its not going to be easy to get any kind of saw in there to cut it out. [ATTACH]84104[/ATTACH]

We bought a 1870's house a few years ago. The whole place was covered in cheap carpet, which we dislike, but we figured we could just replace it when we got the chance. I cannot stand the carpet, so I want to tear it up. I pulled up a few corners to see what was under there and it looks to be original wood floor. Yes, it tests positive for lead paint. My first idea was paint over with a lead sealant primer and then a floor paint, but when I checked one corner near a chimney, all I found was leveling compound...probably not done well. After this I learned there were laminate floors that were replaced with carpet by the investor we bought the house from. So laminate is an option too. Really I don't even know the condition of the floor, as there were at least two house fires in the recent past. If I can, I'd like to take up the compound and paint to floors. Or maybe save up for some laminate flooring. Any advice?