A wood reducer to match your flooring should work nicely. If no one has one, they should be able to make one out of wood stock to match. It might cost a couple of bucks, but it shouldn't be too too astronomical.

First of all, your flooring is so pretty, I love it! This may or may not be of help, but I would never hire a handyman to do the installation. I would instead, get the name of a reputable installer from the store you buy your wood from or call Lumber Liquidators and ask them for a referral. They have a list of guys who work independently but get a lot of their work through Lumber Liquidator referrals. That's where we bought our wood from and before we decided to do our own installation, we met several installers there. If I recall correctly, the average pricing for labor in our area 2-3 years ago was around 13.00 - 16.00 psf depending on the wood. As far as the type of flooring goes, I definitely agree that the 3/4 inch planks are going to be your best option for reasons already stated and again a professional layer is going to know how to transition the two floors together. Really in regards to your other concerns about which wood would hold up best, again, I would pick up the phone and call some of the local distributors. They will be your best resource regarding the different wood types and their durability. When I started researching for our floors, I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful the people at our local Lumber Liquidator store were. A couple of the installers seemed to always be present in the store and they would spend a lot of time giving us some very good tips regarding installation as well as information about the variety of woods we were interested in.

ok, this is an area where I actually know something! I sold and spec'ed hardwood for a custom shop before my mommy-life. The information you are getting here is correct. Engineered floors will give you 1-2 refinishings ON A PERFECT SUBFLOOR. One of the issues that sometimes arises if there are inconsistanies in the height of your subfloor. Because there is thinner wood wearlayer (before you get to the engineered wood) there is the chance that you can damage the floor irreparably when you sand it. Now I only saw this saw this happen twice, once on a loft job and once in an older home. The loft was more subtle as it was over concrete, the old house more obvious as they were DIYers and picked engineered flooring to try to negate their irregular subfloor (they neglected to tell us that that was why they chose engineered, we would have talked them out of it had we seen the floor first) Neither of their claims to the manufacturer were fully settled because both times they did not follow the guidelines for floor prep. The loft job was also a materials only job for us with their GC laying the floors but he insisted he knew what he was doing. A good engineered floor will not be cheaper than most of your nail down options because the production costs are higher. Now having said that, GOOD engineered floors certainly have their place in places where you can't put traditional hardwood due to height restrictions or concrete subfloors. My boss had a great engineered floor in his basement and it survived a flood remarkably well (it was ash, Kahrs brand out of Scandinavia and one of the beefier engineered floors and one of the pioneers) My Grandmother also had a Kahrs floor in her ground suite condo and she LOVED it and I was impressed by the milling. I'm considering it for our basement because it's warmer and less echo-y than laminate There has been a lot of 2nd rate engineered flooring coming out of China and being labeled for all sorts of different companies. You should be able to tell an engineered sample because the layers are sandwiched together and the tongue will be a different wood than the top (showing) layer. Distressed finishes are usually more expensive because of the extra step in manufacturing to make it distressed. That is different than just getting a lower grade of hardwood like a rustic or tavern grade (in solid hardwood). Those grades have more character but they often don't carry a warranty and generally have a higher waste percentage. Another thing to think about---if you ever have to replace part of the floor, you will always be able to replicate 3/4" thick hardwood but engineered floors are more like tile, they change and get discontinued over the years. You could go pre-finished, save the hassle of site finishing but with the thicker wear-layer a 3/4" nail down floor offers. Only you will know if you can handle beveling or not. The changes in milling the last 10 years are huge. The bevel in your better milled wood is tiny. I like Canadian mills, Model or Mirage for pre-finished. Remember that if you ever re-finish, the bevel will disappear and you will, essentially have a site finished floor. One benefit that many people don't know about? With a prefinished tongue and grooved floor you can have a good installer cut out a single board (or more) from your floor if it gets damaged which is why we did a fair bit of pre-finished in new homes since inevitably we would get call-backs at move in to repair trade damage (@#$%^ plumbers and their big wrenches!). Prefinished hardwood deals the best with shinkage and expansion issues because the finish is on individual boards. Site finished floors are more labor intensive but the materials are cheaper (apples to apples). They are what many people consider the gold standard however there are more steps and you don't always know how it's going to look until it's done. There is more chance of finish contamination and trade damage during the rest of the building process. We refinished 100 year old floors. I loved the idea that there wasn't 4 generations of carpet and crap in the landfill. Definitely a forever floor and it can usually be re-sanded for all but the very worst water damage (think entire house under water for a few days) If you are going with a wide plank, keep in mind your species and humidity level (and your ability to keep humidity stable). The wider the plank (with 3/4" thick flooring), the more obvious shrinking and expanding will be. If you take a 2" wide board and it shrinks 2%, it isn't very noticeable. If you take a 6" wide board and it shrinks 2% the gaping will be more noticeable and in the case of a site finished floor *could* pull your finish apart. You'll need to find a flooring contractor in your area with lots of experience. Most of the best hardwood shops ONLY do hardwood. Beware of carpet shops and many of the big box stores in many instances. Make sure they are accredited with the NWFA (national wood flooring association) http://www.nwfa.org/member/ good luck!

Hi. I did something like this in my house. I have a split level. I put Biscayne Oak from Coretec down next to oak stairs. The vinyl extends out down the hallway and into a bathroom and family room. This whole level of the house is the same. It looked the best color wise next to the oak stairs. I put the vinyl over where the tile is as there are 2 layers of tile and demo for that was costly. I am thinking to do the same floor in the upstairs hallway and kitchen, which again is all hardwood floors same color as the stairs. I am nervous to do this in the kitchen and upstairs hallway, but the bathrooms all have the coretech vinyl floor because again 2 layers of tile, and cost. I dont think it looks bad with what you want to do. I will say this, cleaning these coretec floors is heaven :) so easy