Why a "separator piece" at all? Are you running the wood in the hallway lengthwise? Then are you running the rooms perpendicular to that? If you run the wood in the hallway lengthwise and the wood in the rooms the same way, then no "separator piece is needed and you simply make your seam at the board edge of each room.

They sanded and did semi. We are OK with the color, and the finish looks much better. Not too shiny, almost no brush marks/swirls, but still a few minor bumps that we're going to deal with. I think we'll never notice them, and they'll either wear down or get overshadowed by our own marks, as Floortech said. So everything is great ... except that the literally missed a spot. They skipped the toe-kick area under one short cabinet run. Hopefully, this is a simple touch-up and can be feathered in. As for the bumps, etc, we think there were two problems. One is probably the bad cleanup between coats as brandygirl suggested. The other problem probably should have been more obvious to everyone, but the GC is the one who figured it out. He hung up plastic to protect the cabinets and the rest of the house from the sanding before they started. When they sanded, lots of dust clinged to the plastic. Then they started to put down the poly. We think that general air motion through the house -- from the AC, from closing or opening doors, etc -- send enough turbulence to shake dust off of the plastic. It then landed on the floor. Re: next time -- I'm not planning on having a next time!! Thanks for the help.

SJ McCarthy, our contract is stated we are responsible for the materials and we pay for the labor. Unfortunately we never met nor discuss with the owner but only discussed in details ( in the proposal) with the project manager who is the solely the carpenter.) We just found out there were a lot of the DETAILS from the proposal were not explained (per the PM,but who knows) in detail to the owner or almost like "bait and switch" - for example like item #2- he spent more time because the owner did not get him another helper to help him- I told him this should not be the customer's expenses-Anyway we are willing to pay for it. The owner was offering to renew and establish a new contract from the original contact ( we felt that he cherry picking the items from the proposal, we marked them up then again he decided not to included) for the unfinished works . Once he agreed in our 2nd meeting (another example: he agreed tiling our study room to be included from the original contact in our 1st meeting then when he write the REVISED CONTRACT- he wants to charge us ), but again we are facing the same old stories-he tried to change the wording. We were burned so many times and now we diligently review line by line knowing the owner's personality. He kept saying he lived by the contract-then I told him then he should honor the low estimated to install our engineering hardwood floor including removing the carpet-in the end he says he would honor but he did not including the cost in the new REVISED contract which we add into it - we are so tired with his games. So now we put a contingency - once we agree with the new contract, no more additional expenses from the previous work was done- and we do agree that we need to be notified first and need both signatures for additional expenses from the new contract. and no more point finger of "not included" since we have discussed in detailed and are in the contract. The new addition has a hardwood floor installed - with Dri-core. Once hardwood floor was installed- they are some areas squeak- we were told by PM -put a marked up then he would fasten without explaining to us-these would be additional ridiculous charges (PM told the owner, too-we told PM that they should explain it to us- ) Regarding the installing the engineering hardwood floor is for our existing rooms(concrete slabs that has plywood already)- we are told just to put a vapour barrier. Is it possible to let me know what brands for the glues have to be moisture resistant ($2/sf) or moisture PROOF ($3/sf).? The manufacture instruction suggests to use Franklin Tongue and Groove adhesive (cross linking polyaliphactic emulsion glue) www.titebond.com -any suggestions? This Applachian engineering hardwood floor - FLOATING only needs GLUE between the wood (tongue and groove per the manufacture manual ) then would be FLOAT - this is not to be GLUE DOWN on our concrete floor (could be glue down if necessary but not in our case). Here is the website- on PAGE 9 http://www.appalachianflooring.com/uploads/general/documents/engineered-installation-guide.pdf We trust the PM and we pay for it- we just want to move on and complete the project-It has been almost 10 months. We have to do what we have to do to protect ourselves now- The owner refuses to install our towel bar in our new shower without charging us, and we told him we will take care them by ourselves. I will update this post and hoping for a better solution. Thank you

I'm not sure what LVT is. :) I have an appointment with the flooring person for Saturday to test out samples. Cherie, we hate forced hot air because it bothers my and the kids' asthma and allergies so I am actually very happy about these baseboard radiators as radiant heat is much easier on the lungs since it's not blowing hot air all over the place. There is central air for the summer months. We live in Northern NH... it gets cold here for sure. I am going to keep the tile in the kitchen for now and the rest will be new flooring *all going in the same direction* ! We are ripping out the red carpeting, which is in all four bedrooms as well as on the stairs. We want to replace that with flooring and we don't want yet another type of flooring in the house so it makes sense to do the living and dining room as well. When we reconfigure the kitchen, we'll have to match it up and remove the tile at that time.