I see that you are going without much response to this post. I think the difficulty may be that for the usual windbreak, trees like Norway spruce, white pine, and maybe green giants are used. But you want to use smaller trees, which limits your options, and then there is the difficulty of matching growth rates of different kinds of trees so the faster growing trees don't overwhelm the others if you plant them close enough for a wind break. And if you choose slower or smaller growing conifers, then you have the problem of not having a good windbreak for many, many years. So advice is hard to give. Maybe what you really want is a nice grouping of ornamental trees that will have a secondary effect of cutting down on the wind from that quarter. If that is the case, then you should not worry too much about spacing--just give each tree the room it needs to grow to its eventual size. Pick a mixture of trees that have the effect you want. If you don't want the large trees such as Norway spruce, and white pine, what you should do is go through some basic books that describe all the various conifers and their growth potential. Of course there are some smaller cultivars, especially of Norway spruce that might be good for your spot. Maybe cruenta, with its red new shoots in the spring? For spruces, an obvious choice would be blue spruce. There are cultivars that have different sizes and colors. For fir you could have Korean--the species rather than any cultivar would give you a modest zised tree that is very pretty. Nordmann fir might get too big--I don't really know what your limits are. Most larch might get too big, such as European, Japanese, and Dunkeld, but they sure are beautiful with their autumn color. There are various pines that might be good, but I am not the best person to make suggestions. There are Thujas, cypresses, junipers, smaller cultivars of bald cypress, and all kinds of other things you could include. If you are not too far from Washington D.C. you could go to the National Arboretum and look at the Gotelli Collection as well as other areas to see some possibilities. But you might want to include some larger trees for one or two spots. One white pine, one Norway spruce (maybe the "pendula major" if you can find it would give you a nice weeping specimen, and for larch I would go with the hybrid Dunkeld for your zone. Some Japanese maples, which are small to dwarf sized trees, have interesting foliage textures as well as good fall color, so some of these might be good for a border. Maybe an inquiry to the Maples Forum here would give you some ideas. For a shrub maybe a burning bush or two would be good if you are not tired of seeing them everywhere. Of course there are lots and lots of shrubs that might give interesting color, bloom, fragrance, etc. After you select what you want, I would just plant them so each has enough room to grow to something like maturity without crowding out other trees. You won't get much of a wind break for a long time, however. Maybe you could plant a row of Norway spruce as a back drop and a faster windbreak. If you want to do that, get trees 2 or 3 feet tall and plant them six feet apart in a double or maybe triple row staggered (you could even do four or more rows planted like this--you have room and the eventual result should be better). Then as they grow thin out the weaker ones as they become crowded by the faster growing, dewnser, more beautiful ones. If you can afford it, get larger ones and plant them a little further apart, maybe 8 feet or so. Because Norway spruce show so much variation from tree to tree, it is a good idea to plant a lot of extra trees and thin them out later when you see which are really the nicest ones. Well, I hope some of this helps a little. Have fun designing your "corner." --Spruce

You need to do a little more archeological digging still. You need to know the whole construction of the floor before you can decide how best to install something new. I'd take up that plywood piece in the kitchen and see what's under it. It's higher than the surrounding floor, so needs to go. You should also be able to see from there what subfloor is under the original kitchen hardwood. It's too bad the space under your entryway is finished, but I'd still do some exploring from below to see what's under there, and to figure out the fix to stop it from squeaking. Is it drywall below or a drop ceiling? I know it probably seems like a pain to tear out drywall, but if you cut out a clean patch, like 2' x the width of the joists, it'll be relatively simple to repair. Just make sure to cut it down the center of the joists so that there's room to screw the patch piece to it later. Cut the hole under the area that squeaks the most, if you can. Have someone walk on and watch the floor from below to see what's moving. It might be as simple as pounding in a couple shims from below, or face-nailing a loose board from above. You want to find out what's underneath the hardwood. It might be laid directly on the floor joists, or there might be 10" wide boards that the hardwood is nailed to. Another thought is to take out a board in the hallway, since that's not original and you want to replace it. See what the subfloor is there. I am a bit puzzled at why, when you've stripped the kitchen down to the original hardwood, it's still higher than the hallway floor. Is your current surface perhaps not the original kitchen hardwood? Peeling back the plywood area will help determine that. BTW, I haven't heard of that stop squeaking product you linked to, so can't offer any personal opinion. And don't pour self-leveling compound over top of hardwood. It needs to go over plywood.

Yeah one finished room. (Of course still full of dust) They finished our bedroom yesterday. Still have to enventually come back and do the closet, but for now have moved on to the great room. camlan..Their doing the same thing here. Running the wood with no seams from room to room. I hope ours eventually "glow" right now they just glow of dust, but it still is looking nice. judydel. I like to buy rugs at TJ Max HomeGoods. Patty Cakes.. Oh no. The stairs is what inspired us to do this hardwood job. We just finished painting the stairs yesterday. The carpet that was on the stairs was old, dirty and ugly. It had to come up. My kids are teenagers, so hopefully safety wont be an issue. We'll see if they become too loud, etc., we can always eventually add a runner to them. beth..Your floors, rugs and house are beautiful. Thanks for sharing the photos and experience. work.. Thanks for the advice. I'll remember this for the near future. Id love a sweeper I could run on the floor and not have to worry about damage.

This might not be helpful, but we have hardwoods in the front-dining room, library, foyer & we've just ripped out the carpet/tile mix in our kitchen/family room-sounds sort of like yours-one large room. We refinished the d.r & library shortly after we moved in 6 yrs. ago, then after 2 yrs., replaced the vinyl in the hall/half bath w/ hardwood. My husband didn't want to replace the tile, because it was relatively new, but it was 'distressed' ceramic tile, so it had little pits to hold the dirt & I HATED it! The carpet suffered through several aging pets' illnesses (enough said-it was gross). It was a horrible job to rip out the tile, but they stained it today & the poly goes on tomorrow & it's going to look amazing! It cost just under $5K,(they moved all the appliances, except dw, & did oak underneath). After watching them rip up the tile, I'd never have it again (but most people don't put in tile, thinking they'll have to remove it). Linda