Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - Possible to bleach a parquet floor?

My newly-purchased house (hooray!) has a parquet floor that covers the kitchen, family room, entry foyer, hallway, hall closet and coat closet. We're going to have to have the floor sanded and resealed; the wood is in good condition but in the high traffic areas the urethane has noticeably worn thin.

Is there any "reasonable" way to bleach the floor to make it lighter? Right now it's very dark:

<img src="http://www.happymac.us/diy/parquet.jpg">

Neither my wife nor I particularly care for the dark wood floor but we thought that since the floor needs to be sanded and resealed, it may be possible to lighten (bleach) the floor after it was sanded but before it was bleached. Is this possible? Practical? Feasible? What are the caveats? About how much would it cost (figure around 800 square feet)?

If the wood is in good condition, and the problem is simply the poly coating - do you mean to sand the wood floors, or recoat the poly, which involves not cutting into the wood/wood stain (much lighter sanding to simply roughen up the current poly coat.

Removal of dark stain will require sanding it off. Parquet has a very thin veneer layer which does not allow for much sanding.

Cost to sand and refinish floors varies from area to area and among floor finishers. Get two or three bids.

From the photo, it appears that the floor is lighter than the dark cabinets. The contrast looks good.

I agree that the floor looks great in the photo.... I've had two floors sanded/stained/refinished in two different states over the last year or so - both cost me $2.75/sq. ft. to have done.