Winonelson, Yes, the top is expanding in size and the bottom is not. That's what causes the crowning. If the bottom were expanding and the top was not, you would have cupping. In that wine cellar, I believe you'd need to bring the flooring, treads etc. up to that humidity prior to the install. You'd need to have a moisture barrier too, not to keep the moisture out, but to keep it in. Anytime you have a wide spread in moisture between the room and the subfloor, you're going to have problems. Case in point: The largest flooring retailer in Knoxville TN used to be a very good customer of mine on the distribution side. They turn huge numbers, but they are terrible about installing flooring improperly. They would take prefinished solid 3/4" hardwood flooring out of their non-conditioned warehouse at 7 am and they would be nailing it down by 9 am that same morning. On one of the many claims they had, the entire house was cupping. This means the bottom of the floor was growing. While there inspecting the home, we found a open box of the product in their basement. Because this floor had not been nailed down it had plenty of time to acclimate properly. Even thought the rest of the house was cupped like crazy and sub-floor and basement had very high humidity, the un-nailed product was flat as it could be. When flooring get installed too quickly, it encapsulates the moisture. That moisture has to go somewhere. The wood soaks it up like a sponge. The bottom of the floor grows while the top does not and this causes the cupping. Alan Ward WeShipFloors.com 1-844-356-6711

I have not only owned but have installed every type of floor out there (well, I never installed wall to wall carpet and I spent a lot of time ripping it out of my houses): tile, full thickness finished in place hardwood, engineered wood of various styles, laminate, sheet vinyl, vinyl planks, ceramic tile, rubber, and cork. Like just about everything else, engineered wood varies in quality and price. Yeah, I put in some cheap as you can get home center stuff and it wore faster than it should. I've got some quality stuff that's been in constant use for a decade and you can't tell it isn't new. Engineered wood is going to be more stable to humidity (in the air) than regular wood floors. In fact, since mine is installed over a radiant heated floor, we decided to go with engineered wood primarily for that matter. Where I don't like wood is in places where you're likely to get a decent amount of water on the floor: kitchen, bath, laundry, and perhaps less than perfect basements. There I've used tile (though I hate that in kitchens because I drop things), rubber (we had industrial rubber slate finish in our kitchen and foyer), and now I'm using the premium Mannington Ardura. I still have some tile accents (a rectangular area under the dining room table, and a border in the living room where my wife sets all her house plants). If you want wood, get wood.

When it comes to "trends" vs. "timelessness" you want to look at your personal timeline for selling. Are you planning to sell in the next 5-7 years? If so, go with the trend and ignore your own tastes. If you sell in a few years then you are not buying/constructing the home for yourself. You are creating it for the NEXT buyer. If you are in it for the long haul (7+ years) then you put in the floor that makes YOU happy and that makes YOU smile and that makes YOU feel better about your choices. If you want flooring that can be "extended" into other areas for a later remodel (like in 10 years time) then work with the 3" product. It will be around for a long, long, long time. Wide planks are trending HEAVILY right now. They come and go. And if you are in there for 10+ years, you will want to have the option of refinishing so that when it comes time to sell, you can update your floors for $5/sf instead of having to pay someone to rip out and replace the floors ($10+ per square foot for a job like that).

I had tile in my last home and moved to a home with carpet everywhere but the kitchen (yes, even the bathrooms had carpet (yuk)). After 20 years my joints could not withstand the impact of living on tile floors. Choices were to replace the carpet with Carpet - It is soft and quiet. It gets dirty and is hard to get clean. Muddy paws from an active puppy while delandscaping the yard was a nightmare. Hardwood - much more expensive - harder than tile or LVT to maintain, would require purchase of area carpets to protect. LVT - cost efficient - low maintenance, limited lifespan (20 years ish) I'm 59 - 20 years I won't be able to see what it looks like. Can add area carpets for aesthetics, but can eliminate the trip hazards of area carpets as I age in place. Engineered hardwood seemed to have the same cons as hardwood, but cannot be refinished over and over again - thin layer of wood. I decided to replace the carpet with LVT, I am doing one room at a time as I renovate, but am very happy with my choice. I bought Downs H20 from Cloister's Flooring America. It is waterproof and is manufactured by Coretech for the CCA Family of flooring companies. Same product, different name at each company website. Different price at each store (store not company level, two different Flooring America franchises had 2 different prices). Difference from highest price to lowest price was a difference of $2.00 per sq ft - I was covering 2000 sf, so this was a substantial savings. I loved the franchise I picked - Cloister's Flooring America. Other franchises really pushed the professional install - Cloister's seems to cater to the DYI folks (Owned by a Mennonite family). For $75.00 they send one of their installers out for 2 hours to teach you how to lay the flooring and they will rent you a tool kits that has everything you need to lay your floors. I bought one box of each of two colors and could exchange the one I didn't pick when placing my full order. I also got an additional $500 off because I hadn't placed my order yet and they called because they were having an anniversary sale. I hadn't called because I had a heart attack and was in the hospital when I got the call. They gave me the $500 off and told me I could call when I was home and feeling up to ordering even though the sale was just for the week. They even helped me with the layout plan. Told me to use graph paper and tracing paper. I drew out my floor plan on graph paper and traced the outline of the flooring pattern on the tracing paper. You place the tracing paper over the floor plan and move it around until you have a placement that doesn't leave you with little 2" strips anywhere. You do have to be exacting in your measurement and drawing of the floor plan and lay out enough pieces to get exact measurements for your tracing. I didn't find this method on the internet anywhere - most have you plan from the center of the room, but this worked out really well for me.