sc Kathyc - We originally were leaning toward going dark with the floors until they were installed. They are just so beautiful unfinished aren't they? When we went with darker stains we lost the color variations and gained more grain activity. We had a lot of different stain colors and combos, but ended up going with 2 parts natural and 1 part chestnut stain (I think). You can still tell it's hickory, yet the color variations aren't too demanding in the room. One of the toughest decisions on our build, but I'm very happy with how they turned out.

Okay. I gave up, and called in the pros... They used a professional floor scraper (basically, a large razor blade on a long stick) to get the lino up, and then used a giant sander with 24 grit sandpaper to get the tar up. They also told me that it is NOT asbestos - just plain old tar. After 8 months of me and my neighbor and his friends scraping, scraping, scraping... it took the pros about two hours. It looks AMAZING. I am thrilled. Its only just been sanded - I'm waiting on the matching heart pine I ordered to patch it, and then they'll put the finish on it. It's costing me $1200 for scraping, sanding, and finishing, plus an extra $400 for the patch work (including ripping the 5" boards down to fit in my 3 1/4" floor). The heart pine boards to patch? $38 a box, times two boxes. And to tell you the truth? Totally worth it. And it should be done after three days of work. Three days! I have been up all night every night in the last week stressing about the darn floor - the idiots my neighbor got to work on it (supposedly pros) damaged it, and I was sure it was just ruined. Now I can finally get some sleep. That right there is worth the money.

Thanks to everyone for all the great suggestions! Feisty, thanks for sharing the fruits of your research. That looks like a wonderful though expensive product with some very nice color options. The 5% white you mention is an option and I'm also curious about the cotton white because I want to keep the cabinets light in color. We will definitely be re-finishing our old oak floors as well and was already thinking about using a natural oil based finish, so this might come in handy again:) Szruns, while the Java might be too dark for my taste, I see that general finishes also have some lighter options. I'll keep it in mind if we decide to finish ourselves. Texas_Gem, thanks for the anecdotal advice :) Homechef, that's interesting you found staining to be more difficult than painting. Our cabinet design actually started out as white and we were going to go with white thermofoil before moving away from it due to concerns about performance. I would have liked white painted cabinets but everyone we talked to estimated a 15% upcharge for going from stained wood to painted wood, which is why I started considering having a more natural wood finish instead. Anyways, I did look at Barker as an option as well and see that they have the option for paint grade unfinished doors. How much time did you spend per cabinet when you painted your custom cabs? We are going with slab type doors, so hopefully that will make any DIY jobs a little easier.

I prefer site finished. It is easier to refinish when it needs it. Your friend has probably done "buff and coat" procedures. This is normally done ONCE and then a FULL sand and refinish. If your friend has been doing the buff and coat MORE THAN once, then she's doing it "wrong" (could be "right" for her, but it isn't the regular way for hardwood). Traditionally the FULL sand and refinish occurs around the 20 year mark. So the floors, after 20 years SHOULD look like this. That's kinda what tells you "it's time". A buff and coat only adds a coat of finish (to freshen up the floor). It doesn't "correct" anything. The FULL sand and refinish will do 10 TIMES more for the look of the floor than a buff and coat. The sand/refinish will strip the old finish off and then carve off 1-2mm of WOOD. That means 99.9% of all dings and gouges will be taken care of. The "dirt and food in between" (the planks) is MUCH MORE likely to occur with factory finished floors. These floors have bevelled edges (a little shoulder on every plank that creates little valleys between each plank). But it can occur with floors SHRINKING from LOW humidity. The floor can create little gaps between planks. That's normal if the humidity is too low or is uncontrolled. The THINNER the plank, the LESS the wood will/can shrink. That's why narrow/strip hardwood is the BEST option for uncontrolled humidity. Those big, beautiful, expensive, wide plank products that are SUPER trendy = not an option for uncontrolled humidity. A factory finished hardwood (with Aluminum Oxide = AO) is going to be SUPER expensive to refinish and here's why. The AO finish is SOOOO tough (how tough is it SJ?). It is SOOOO tough it takes 2-3 TIMES the amount of effort/material to strip it from the wood floor. Once the AO is gone, the wood turns into a normal hardwood floor. And just for fun, the 'refresh' buff and coat is almost IMPOSSIBLE to do. Even the toughest finish looks tired around the 15 year mark. Sadly, AO finishes often prevent a recoat (the finish is chemically very slick...almost nothing sticks to it = HELL to add '1 coat'). The average cost of a full sand/refinish = $5/sf. The average cost of a sand/refinish of AO = $7-$9/sf. Yes. It is THAT TOUGH to remove. A traditional buff and coat = $2.50 - $3/sf. So if you do the math, the site finished hardwood may cost a bit more on day 1....but by year 30 it will be MUCH cheaper/easier to deal with/live with. It allows you to freshen up the finish around year 15 (if you wish). It allows for a routine sand/refinish without adding a HIGHER COST of labour. So "cost effective" today can be much more costly by the time you plan on refinishing. In fact, so many people look at the extra costs and figure a new floor is cheaper....and they are right. Sigh...so there goes the idea of using up all the life on the hardwood (3/4" solid hardwood). That goes out the window when the owner realizes the costs are much higher and they choose to rip it out and throw it out; thus negating the benefit of a solid hardwood!