I definitely wouldn't get engineered for the reasons you stated. We're using Lauzon too, but it's prefinsihed hardwood, not engneered.

but the bigger issues is that brazilian cherry is a far cry from reclaimed pine - like two entirely different directions, night and day. Which would you REALLY want?????

You should be able to get pre-finished hardwood - there are many varietie - the only time you have to use engineered is if you're installing it on a slab and can't nail it to a subfloor.

I wasn't will to give my right arm so we didn't use reclaimed but we have put in Wide pine plank, faced nailed flooring. All of house is 12-20 inch planks except the kit I think is going to be all 12 inch. We use Land Ark oil treatment for finishing. Our contractor and DH wanted all natural, no chemicals as well as patch repairable if necessary. If I had it do over again I would put the floors in first thing and let the work go on, then sand and oil. They would have had more of the look of reclaimed. They do look and feel beautiful for our taste.

That's interesting, weissman. The entry area is on a slab foundation, but the rest of the wood areas is on a raised foundation. So are you saying I would need engineered hardwood for the entry but not the rest of the house? If I need to do engineered on the entry (which is below stairs from the rest of the wood area), can I get a match or near match to the rest of the flooring if I go with a solid hardwood?

Does that mean that I couldn't do a reclaimed wood floor in the entry? Bummer.

Buffettgirl -- (I keep reading that as buffet!) Brazilian cherry was my GC's suggestion; I love the look of white heart pine, but I understand it may not be practical (although, seriously, how can a floor that has lasted 100 years already not be practical?). Maybe too casual for my space, I don't know. I think he generally works with Lauzon; I'm not exactly sure if there is some relationship between the GC and certain vendors. He really didn't like my soapstone idea, either.

On a slab you should use engineered. Engineered wood can be refinished, but the exact number of times depends on the manufacturer.

The face will be Brazilian cherry, but the rest of the plies will be a cheaper grade of wood, so you shouldn't worry about the entire plank being made from rainforest wood.

We wound up with engineered hw for several reasons: cost, subfloor, and the fact that we were having problems levelling between three different areas made of different materials. The floors were one of the biggest challenges of the job, actually.

I would have preferred either a thick-veneer engineered 1/2" or 3/4 solid so that we could refinish pretty much indefinitely, but unfortunately they were too thick and caused further problems with the multiple surfaces. In the end we went with one of the cheapest choices simply because it was the best colour, finish, guarantee and thickness combination (3/8" engineered oak in a nice medium finish). I figure it has a 20 year warantee and, while it can't be completely sanded, the actual finish can be "screened" and cleaned up (in other words, as long as it doesn't have big huge divets in it it can be refinished at least a couple of times).

I have to admit that once I started looking at the engineered hw's I was surprised at how nice many of them are. Also, my GC says he's had some GREAT success with some of these pre-finished woods which have withstood wear and tear better than traditional flooring.

FWIW.

Check out Mirage flooring. I used Mirage hardwood natural red oak, but they also make engineered floors as well. My contractor has installed both. The engineered floors have a layer of hardwood so it ought to match if you get the same grade and finish.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mirage floors

We are in Florida so with the humidity, plus the slab, its better to go with engineered. I've seen cruddy looking engineered and really beautiful engineered. We did get Brazillian Cherry in a very low sheen, by Mirage. My last house had Lauzon engineered in Birch. The Birch was softer and dented from the dog. The BC has only about two small scratches that are visible (barely) after two years. Due to the low sheen, you just can't see the dog scratches. I will never have to refinish this floor. In many many years I may just have it screened and another coat of poly. My neighbors with four dogs have the same floor and same durablity.

You may be right about the source of the BC not being ethical. And its a very specific look. The opposite of the pine planks.

Here is an example of two floor types coming together. You don't have to have those big connecting strips. Maybe you could put tile or stone at the entry on the slab.

{{!gwi}}

well I will freely admit, at some point in time my house will have reclaimed pine flooring. Its not practical, but I've been in houses that have original 1800's flooring, and there is just nothing like it. It just looks right depending on the location. It's gorgeous and the more marked up it gets the better it looks.

Why do you have to remove the existing hardwood floors? Are they in bad shape? If the existing hardwood is in good condition, a good floor man will be able to fill in any areas where hardwood is missing, then just continue with matching hardwood into any areas where you want to add hardwood floors. Naturally, the entire floor (old and new) will have to be sanded and re-stained for colour consistency, then finished. Once it's all done, you won't be able to tell where old wood ends and new wood starts.

In my house, every inch of flooring is 3/4" thick tongue-in-groove red oak. The house was extensively remodeled in 2005. Walls were moved, and some parts of the old floor had been tiled. We wanted to save as much of the old hardwood floor as we could (it was in good condition). The sub-contractor brought in to do the floors was terrific. Once he was done, there's no way you can tell which parts of the floor are old, and which parts are new or where new wood was pieced in.

In the photo below, you can see some old floor and some new floor. Old flooring runs in the foreground of the hall. New flooring begins right where the stairs begin.

Wow, jamesk, your floors are really beautiful. If I had lovely red oak floors, I would definitely keep them. I have to admit I prefer the look of oak and pine to the Brazilian Cherry.

Unfortunately, our floors are not in great shape and there are weak spots so we need to take up all the floors and repair the subfloor.

Maybe we could do a stone or something like that in the entry (we have carpet in the adjoining living room that I want to keep for noise control and comfort) and then get real hardwood for the rest of the house.

If you want to keep your current wood, do you have closets that you could cut matching wood out of? Use the closet wood for patching and then install new wood in the closets. A perfect match is much less important in a closet with the door shut.

Nope on both scores, kec01. The current wood is not nice and needs to be replaced. It's oak, with bad wear on the finish, but not pretty red oak like jamesk's; it's plain ole honey oak and looks a lot like the 1970s/1980s kitchen cabs everyone is ripping out; also, it's not layed correctly and there are soft spots in the subfloor so it needs to be at least removed, new subfloor installed, relayed and refinished. Going by the poorly mitered corners, I'm guessing that the flooring was poorly done DIY, much like the rest of the "upgrades" the previous owners put in. And, they only put down the oak in the kitchen, dining room, stairs and hallway. Everything else was carpet, vinyl (laundry room) or tile (bathrooms).

jamesk, what color are your walls? Love them.