First some of my experience (as a new hardwood floor owner), and then your questions. Pleasant surprises - much easier to keep clean that I expected. After almost half a year, I still love to look at my floor every single day. I still look to find "favorite boards" and see how they look in different light. And I still love the feel of the floor on my feet. However - some of the downsides I discovered. If I don't wear a padded or soled slipper, I get toe cramps. Weird, huh? We also live in a place where people tend to sand their icy walkways rather than chemical/melt. That's fine, except it requires some caution to keep from sand papering your floor simply by walking in the house. Rugs do the trick for the most part, but there's always those few loose grains. We're looking at installing a whole house humidifier. We need it anyway, but if we didn't we'd still be looking at it for the floors. We have very humid summers, and very cold/dry winters. Our floors have developed expansion/contraction gaps in some places that are nearly 1/8" wide. I haven't run into this yet, but my aunt had hardwood floors put in and sold her house 4 years later. She typically vacuumed rather than shook/beat her rugs. When she pulled them up after their house sold, the hardwood under he rugs was noticeably darker than around, due to surrounding areas having faded. I don't know how prone hardwood normally is to fading, but something to think about. For you rpictures - I think hardwood would look good in there. Is the entry at your front door already hardwood? You have a lot of warm colors & I think you would enjoy the aesthetics (you have a lot of stained wood accessories, and I think I see a fair bit of oak, so I'm assuming you enjoy the look of wood grain). How much distance is there between your couches? You generally want to place the rug so that at least the front feet of the furniture can rest on at least the border of the rug. Are you thinking prefinished, or finished onsite? Mine were finished onsite, so I could see the actual stain on the actual wood - an in larger areas than your average sample board. That helped. Go to a flooring store (or look through pictures here, or both) and get samples and set them on your floor. Move them throughout the day and notice how they look in different light. Usually the floor is more permanent than the furniture, so consider how you rwood looks with your furnishings to the degree you think is right. If the store has multiple samples, see if they'll let you check them all out and you can "pretend" to have one large sample. (I do that with like 10 paint chips at a time!)

Is this an older home? Do you know the species of wood on the risers of the stairs? In the second picture, it looks quite a bit like quartersawn oak. If it is, it would REALLY be a shame to paint over it. I personally don't mind the darker floor against the lighter stained stairs. Where is the bedroom that is already done with teak? It is upstairs or downstairs? You might also be able to restain the risers and banisters to the darker color to pull the two stains together. This is what we did on our stairway and I'm happy with the way it turned out. It may be an option for you.

When it comes to hardwood, trends are something to ignore! Why? Because hardwood is pretty much a lifetime purchase, and unless yours is damaged in some way, you're probably not going to replace it. So, light wood vs. dark wood, wide planks vs. narrow planks -- that stuff's all going to come and go. With that in mind -- as well as the very real concerns about cleaning dark wood -- I'll vote for a nice, neutral midtone every time. Not too much contrast, not too red, and (unless it's a beach house) not too pale. I think this is the wood that's most likely to give you good service and stand the test of time.

Wood vs. Engineered Wood? No contest in this case. If the home was built in 1905, put real hardwood in. This preserves the integrity of the home's building materials. Plus, as you can see from the age of these floors, higher grades (i.e. thicker) hardwood can be sanded several times; you usually don't get even one chance to sand engineered wood. The hardwood layer at the top of this multilayered product is simply too thin. Level Floors and Subfloors There are ways to level a subfloor, ranging from replacing parts of the subfloor with thicker or thinner sheets of plywood (or planks, see below), to pour-on leveling compounds that harden to make the entire floor level. What you use to level uneven areas depends on what the subflooring is. If it is plywood or concrete, the compound works. But more likely with this home, on floors at or above grade, there will be wood planks laid at a diagonal across the floor joists. So in your home, the layers were probably joists first, then subfloor planks of wood, then hardwood with tongue & groove joints. You cannot effectively use a pour-on leveling compound on a plank subfloor, as there are cracks between the planks. However, you can lay a new hardwood floor directly on a wood plank subfloor as long as those planks are sound and relatively level. Replace individual planks that have been damaged by water or insects, are otherwise compromised, or even missing (it happens!), with either new planks of lumber, or with plywood of the same thickness as the planks. Any lumber you install, for either the subfloor or finished flooring, should be brought in to your home several days prior to installation, so the materials acclimatize to your typical interior temperature and humidity. Unlike for ceramic or porcelain tile, the subfloor does not have to be perfectly level. And unlike vinyl sheeting, planks or tiles, the hardwood won't "telegraph" minor differences in height, and minor surface irregularities, so the subfloor doesn't have to be absolutely perfect; it should be sound, strong, uniform and essentially level. Your flooring contractor can give you specifics on what upgrades your subfloor may need once the original hardwood is removed. Joists If the floor is significantly not level in parts, or if certain areas feel spongy when you walk on them, I recommend you have your flooring contractor, a home inspector, or structural engineer inspect the subflooring and especially the floor joists. You don't want to invest in a new floor, only to have it become damaged because some joists weren't attended to. Transitions Transitions (a.k.a. thresholds or molding) between existing rooms and the new floor ought to be made of the same wood and same finish (stain, polyurethane, etc.) as the new flooring you are putting down. As wood ages, the finish becomes darker, so trying to make the transitions match the finishes of existing floors is very difficult and not recommended (what will match those floors right now won't match later after your transitions age up a bit). Eventually, the transitions wouldn't match either the new or the old floors! Transitions come in four types: reducer (when the two floors being joined are of different heights), seam binder (when the floors are the same height, and the boards from each are very close to one another), T-mold (when the two floors are the same height, but there is a crack between the two rooms' flooring) and stair nose or stair edger (when the flooring needs to curve around the front of a stair's "tread"--the flat part of a stair upon which you tread!). The transitions for your particular project can be ordered when you order the hardwood, so make sure to include measurements for those doorways/entrances. The contractor can tell you if he/she anticipates there will be a height difference or gap between the floorings, which would require those particular transitions. Dry Air Concerns Consult a local lumber supplier or flooring contractor familiar with your local climate conditions to discuss finishes or other tips for keeping your wood floors healthy in the dry winters. Sounds wonderful! Have fun!