I am getting hand scraped in the new house so I am curious too. I just assumed I would clean them the same as my hardwood floors in the home we just sold. I've always damp mopped them with just water and then when they dried I used the Bona hardwood floor cleaner and the Bona hardwood floor mop. I've been using it for years and never had any trouble. What did you hear negative about the product?

Ganny - After you are sure the dust has been vacuumed from all the other surfaces, dampen a rag with mineral spirits and wipe down the wood floor. Change rags frequently, refolding to expose clean surfaces until you run out of clean, then get a fresh rag. Spread the rags on the driveway to dry before you discard them.

Yes, I believe they are a fad, and I'll tell you why. They're virtually impossible to screen and recoat. That's basic maintainence every 5-10 years. You bring in a heavy duty buffer and "rough up" the floors and then reapply a finish coat. With hand scraped, you have to do all of the screening by hand if you're going to get "down in the hollows" as well as hit the high points. That's a lot more maintainence intensive, as well as expensive. If you don't do the screen and recoat, and now you have to refinish, then you have to machine sand, although I suppose you could pay exhorbitantly for someone to hand sand the whole floor. Sanding will take off the high spots and even the flooring out. That hand scraped look will be gone. They'll be flat and smooth--which was the goal of most of our forefathers who put in wood floors. Rustic plank floors weren't meant for upscale homes. THose were workman's homes. They were just waxed cheap pine boards that if they were lucky got stripped and rewaxed every couple of years. Nice wood floors in more upscale homes, such as oak or mahogany, were sanded smooth, shellaced, and waxed, and kept buffed to a high shine by paid help. It's a peculiar reversal of status to have hand scraped and rustic floors now rather than smooth high shine ones. It's much like during the old days when pale skin was considered beautiful and desirable by the elite and if you had a tan, that mean that you had to work outside and thus were of a lower social status. Then that reversed, and the social elite were the only ones who had the leisure and money to travel to exotic locations to acquire a tan, and the pale folks were the ones in the factories out of the sun.

Slush's DW here. Not sure if this is helpful at all to you but we went with Garrison II Walnut for our living room and hallways. We are trying to decide if we want to carry it through to the kitchen. We LOVE the floors. Yes they do get scratches and dings when things drop on them, but clean up easily and the scratches magically disappear when cleaned. (or if really deep, I just use a black sharpie) We get so many compliments on the flooring, it's definitely the favorite thing in our home. I also love the feel of it when you walk on it. The little groves are just fun. We got them installed in 2006 and have 3 young children. They are holding up great. Here are a few pictures: This was soon after install in 2006 From Kitchen - BEFORE Another view From Kitchen - BEFORE And 5 years later it still looks awesome (excuse the mess please - I was capturing the chaos of Christmas morning - but you can still see the floors) From Kitchen - BEFORE