These floors look beautiful! Are they slippery? Has it ever been a problem? I was all set on getting polished porcelain and my contractor just told me its very slippery if I put it by the entrance and the stairs to second floor. I have little kids....what am I to do? Thank you!!!

I'm glad to hear that the LED lights are working for you. It sounds like you have a much bigger space than we do, with only 2 more lights. I think this was perhaps our biggest mistake -- just too many of these lights. (As I mentioned, I was worried that LEDs wouldn't put out enough light). Maybe if we had only installed 4 of them, the amount of light would be ok. To reduce the number to 4 at this point would require completely re-placing the lights and rewiring. I wonder also if the increased number of lights in our smaller space is amplifying the effect of the flickering? i.e. maybe it wouldn't be noticeable if the lights were further apart? The housing and dimmer switch we have are both on the compatible list on the Cree website. All 7 of the lights are connected to the same dimmer switch. So I'm not sure what the problem is. When they are on at full power, they don't buzz or flicker. We had friends over yesterday and at full power they thought the lights looked great. (It wasn't too bright for them). Then I dimmed them and they didn't think the buzzing was too bad. They also didn't really notice much flickering. But then I started waving my arms around and they were shocked. The strobe effect when the lights were dimmed made my kitchen seem like a disco! Cbjmidwood, when you dim your lights and wave your arms around, is there any strobing?

I couldn't wait to get home & play!!! Thank you all so much! We moved in here & a lot wasn't/still isn't finished. I had to take a break for awhile to live in the space. Just for fun, I found another set of pictures to try also. Ok, so I couldn't let completely go of some of my stuff & put it in the "dead corner" The other side of the kitchen( my favorite place to sit, especially in winter). Still need sconces for FP, pendants over island & UC lighting........... AND command center/ wine bar AND rework pantry cabs to hold microwave & breville in my "scullery" area.

I have decided to try again and refinish the floors in a few years after I add new flooring to the main level of my house. So I am going to try to mix a one-coat stain for the stair treads. I'll try minwax red oak and espresso first. I might buy a dark walnut or other dark color stain if that doesn't work. When I refinish, I will probably build new flush-mount vent registers and toss the ones I have. They are not that well made nor structurally strong, especially at the intake. (I keep stepping on the edge of the vent register in front of the patio door and I'm afraid I will break it.) But I will keep the registers I have until I redo the floor. I think I need to frame out the vent openings with mitered floor planks and run the register slats across the shorter dimension. Two more immediate concerns: (1) Stair Tread Project: The varathane water poly on the wood floor is being scratched from the dogs' nails. The scratches are white-ish. I have been letting the dogs play and I need to do a better job trimming the puppy's nails. However I do not want to deal with scratched poly on the stair treads that I will be installing soon. Do the scratches come out when you sand-screen and apply a new coat of poly as maintenance? Or should I use a power buffer? What tool would you recommend? I prefer not to remove the white painted side trim when I refinish the stair treads every couple of years (as necessary) because it will be thin and will probably have to be replaced (and it will be hard and time consuming to cut new trim pieces). (2) Fireplace Project: I will be re-tiling the fireplace hearth this year. The hearth is framed by wood flooring that I just refinished, and will refinish again. I purchased carrera marble tiles, about 3/8" thick. The marble hearth will be flush with the wood floor. How should I tile this so that the marble is protected when I refinish the wood floor again in the future? I don't want metal edging between the tile and the wood. I sealed the inside edge of the wood floor that surrounds the hearth with poly already, and I won't be changing the color of the wood floor significantly.