Amy, this isn't the best pic - but my camera battery just died. We had all of the floors in our house redone, except for the family room. They are red oak. The man sanded them, then put a sealer on which really brought out the color, then two coats of a oil-based poly. I love them. I know darker stains are in vogue, but I do like the natural look of the red oak. They do look red in this photo - but are not so IRL.

Monkeymo- My floors are actually screwed down at the ends and the recessed screwheads covered with a wood plug-so it does have a pegged appearance. The plugs were stained the same color as the planks-some show up more than others. I don't think the "feel" of my floor is any more rustic than those silly faux antique scraped floors that have been trendy lately. The kitchen had been the only wood floor in the house when I bought it, but I've been installing similar wood floors using the same screw covered with plug method. The effect is no more rustic than if the 5 in planks were nailed. My floor is not grooved-but there is enough space between planks that stuff could accumulate. Hasn't been a problem. I would think that having open grooves would be easier to clean if something was dropped. Reading your first post again, I picked up the cracked tile comment. Probably means your current subfloor has insufficient support for a tile floor-not rigid enough. Natural stone require a floor that's much stiffer than ceramic tile. You'll need to do a lot of reinforcement of the subfloor if you want a tile floor that doesn't crack. Travertines I've seen have been either too grayish or brassy gold to work with our colors-two exceptions being scabos and autumn blend-which I don't see for sale anymore. I only have one other pic of the kitchen-I've been busy gardening and haven't finished up the backsplash, etc. It's roughly a 20' x 30' room with half for the kitchen cabinets and a half bath and the other half has the kitchen table and the fireplaced family area. There's a sliding door to a large deck out of view to the right. Fridge, sink, DW, wall oven and a closet/pantry on unseen wall to right. P.S. The color combination of floor and cabinets looked fine before all those rugs went down. But my dogs do use the kitchen as part of their racetrack so... It might even look a little bland it the colors were too matchy.

Lynn, you are certainly encouraged to have an opinion and express it. When you named Jannie directly in your post it appeared that you were personally attacking her instead of just sharing an opinion. I, personally, was posting an example to show that IN MY OWN OPINION she meant no harm and meant no offense. I don't feel there was anything confrontational about my post, it wasn't intended to "offend anyone back" and I even offered hugs at the end to EVERYONE affected by this stressful hurricane season (including you!). The situations you describe happen everywhere, and yes it is sad - no one here is saying it isn't. But just as you are allowed to have an opinion, so are all of the rest of us, and if you want us to respect yours, you need to respect ours as well - it's not a one way street. You posted your opinions, we posted ours back. I don't think there's a single person here that hasn't been touched by some form of tragedy, but that doesn't mean we can't poke fun at ourselves or post light-hearted comments - that's all part of healing, and we can even agree to disagree when there are differences of opinion. So I certainly respect the fact that you have strong feelings on the subject, and encourage you to post them if that's what helps you get through. It sounds like this is a touchy subject for you and I'm truly sorry for whatever you've gone through that has hurt you so badly. But I will also step in and try to clarify/defend if I see someone that *in my opinion* is being misunderstood. So please by all means contribute! Just because I may not agree with someone doesn't mean I may not learn from what they have to say. Differing opinions are what makes the world go 'round, as long as we can all respect each others' :-)

Pallman is fine. There are two things I would change: Humidity - it is at the lower end of acceptable. Even though 35% is allowed, it is still going to show some problems with splitting and checking. Please get it up to 45% - 50%. That will really, really, really help the wood look health and beautiful. This should be done SLOWLY. About 5% increase every 7 days or so. Ditch the Minwax. It is low-end DIY stuff. If Pallmant makes stains, then get them to work with Pallman stains. Get them to redo the colour patches for you to decide on your colour...again going with a coat of finish over the stain patch so that you can see the depth of colour. That's it. They are stepping up and fixing a finish that was really rough. They buffed three times (I'm assuming the buffing was between every coat) and yet they still came up with a rough finish. So they are doing it over. Very nice. You have an stand-up group of guys there. If they won't switch out the Minwax - it probably isn't a huge deal. Many refinishers like to work with Minwax because the stains have remained the same for DECADES. I'm not a fan, but oil based stains work with oil based finishes all the time. The HUMIDITY is going to be your challenge as a homeowner. If you can bump it up to 45%, you will have a much happier floor. Much, much happier floor.