I've been a professional cleaner for 17 years (and still with most of my original clients!) and the absolute best and cheapest thing to clean with is a splash of clear or lemon (not sudsy) ammonia in warm water. Using just a splash in a bucket of water will not harm the floors--I have homes that have not have the floors redone in the time I've cleaned for them and they are still beautiful and unharmed. The key is to use very little water. For me, the best tool is a mop called the Sh-mop (lots of places sell them---you can google to find them). Rather than a sponge to wring out, you get removable terry cloth covers to use. I wring them out so they're just wet enough to pick up dirt and sticky spots, but not so wet that they leave the floor with any standing water. When one gets dirty, you put another one on the mop so you are never cleaning with dirty water. Plus, they save a lot of time because the cover much more surface than a regular mop. I hope you find this useful!

weedy: Mmph. I didn't even think of just slapping some carpet over the top. That's not all that bad an idea. Hmm. glenn: Chestnut seems unlikely for the Pacific Northwest. The rest of the house is trimmed out in a fairly modest fashion, and was built in 1925, so I'm assuming it would be a local wood. The boards near the splintery one, which have grain more perpendicular to the surface of the floor, have held up extremely well to 80+ years of use. I only guessed at what kind of wood it is in case that makes a difference.

Liang, Looks fun choices. Here are some other factors you may wish to consider. Structure of the flooring and where you plan on installing the product are also factors. Is this a single simple room/project (no cabinets, no layout changes)? Upstairs or down?

https://www.builddirect.com/learning-center/flooring/janka-hardness-rating-scale/ Not sure if this is correct, but it seems that the janka scale may not even apply to engineered wood Where do engineered hardwoods stand on the Janka Hardness scale? They don’t, really. Why? Since these hardwoods are made with a layer of softer wood beneath them, their hardness cannot really be gauged correctly with the scale. Little information is available on how these engineered woods would fit into the scale because of the variances in materials used to build the layers of flooring from brand to brand. Logic and reason indicate that engineered flooring with a thicker veneer of solid hardwood would be stronger, but this may or may not be the case. To make things simple, do not focus on the Janka Hardness Scale when purchasing an engineered wood floor.