Flooring Issues - need help!

[babydad]

Just moved into a new house and we have a lot of floor area. Problem is the original floorboards are in a terrible state and we can't just sand and paint/varnish as we originally hoped. There are big gaps everywhere and not safe for our 2 year old DS.
We want floorboards rather than carpet and decided to have darkish floor downstairs, white painted stairs and white floorboards upstairs. Whole house is painted white.
Budget isn't massive and been looking at laminate to reduce price but it just looks so much cheaper. Finding it really hard to find a white floorboard that doesn't look fake, really want it to look authentic.

Does anyone have ideas for both shades?

Cheers

We're also looking at replacing a large floor area with floorboards but damn it's expensive!
If you already have floorboards, even if they've got gaps, would it not be cheaper to look into having them refurbished and repaired?

Failing that, engineered wood is cheaper than solid wood and you can't tell the difference once it's laid.

Get one small room repaired filled sanded and finished and see how it turns out. I have never really seen a floor that can't be fixed. Otherwise woodandbeyond.com are good

I agree you should get them filled and repaired. Quite straightforward to do, I've seen joiners use sawdust, wood glue and whatever paint you are using to fill any gaps - you can always replace the odd plank or two.