Yes,I do, I have those large tiles they look nice but show everything and certainly don't have the warmth.

I debated between tile and hardwood. We went with the hardware and I love it! I had a white vinyl tile before that was so hard to clean. The hardwood is a breeze. Looks great and I only mop about once a week. Just a sweep after dinner everynight. I got the bonakemi floor cleaner system and love it too.

in my opinion the initial cost difference of going with a true hardwood is worth it because the floor should last the life of the house whereas the alternatives will not. we had debated between using slate tile and hardwood flooring in our kitchen and have decided to go with site finished hardwood as the estimates we received for the slate were crazy high. our first hardwood estimate came in pretty high as well but when i spoke with the guy about it he brought it down a good bit. i did get 2 more estimates, one really low and one really high and the high guy would have come down but probably not low enough to reach the middle estimate. i have found that flooring is one place that has a lot of wiggle room in the price so do not be shy to shop around and negotiate for better prices.

Yes stw954, that is my concern, eng vs solid. It's just the two of us, in the country, with a 60 lb dog. We had a prefinished oak floor in our old house, and the dog's nails scratched the surface. This fact alone concerns my husband, and then the word budget is at the top of his vocabulary. The prefinished solids that I am seeing these days has the oxide finish which should hold up better. Both of our samples have a 25-year finish warranty. Is the value in the difference of material the same as a laminate counter vs granite. (no offence, my kitchen will have a combo of laminate and quartz) To me the eng floor says plywood, and I'm afraid I will regret not buying quality.

Is there a comparable value in engineered hardwood?

We had tiles in our old house because we had a problem with our mainline (we fixed it, but didn't want to risk a flood on our first floor that could ruin wood). Tile is extremely durable, but it is also hard, cold, and hard to clean.

Other factors to consider are your climate and where your kitchen is located in relationship to entrances from outside. We're in Wisconsin and today's snowstorm again confirms that we made a wise decision in picking tile by the entrances which flow into kitchen. I believe that an engineered wood looking floor would probably be stronger than real wood in surviving the winter grit that gets tracked in.

lodalady, you sound like me. Just the two of us, in the country, and big dog. lol.

We laid tile in the kitchen but we're getting ready to lay eng. wood in the rest of the house. I did a lot of research on this, and for our needs, due to the dog, the eng wood won. I even took my fingernail and tried to scratch really hard on the sample. Nothing. I poured water on the sample and left it there for 12 hours. Nothing.

Also, you can buy various thickness of the eng. wood. Our's will have a 20 year warranty.

One more thing, and this is what confuses me. Most stores and websites tell us do NOT put wood in a kitchen where water is. You never know what could happen.

As far as hardness with tile floors, I wear house shoes 12 months out of the year. I'm officially an old lady. :)

From experience in having an engineered floor in the kitchen, I'd like to add the following:

Make sure the one one choose is smooth and flat and hard. V grooved or hand scraped stuff isn't really great in the kitchen. If its smooth, you can refinish it once. If its flat and without grooves, cleaning is a lot easier as "stuff" accumulates in the cracks. Choose Oak, Maple or some of the imported hardwoods and choose a color that is close to the natural color of the wood. When its scratched (or you drop the knife), it will blend in better...

With the oxide finish, dogs are kinda funny because they can't get any purchase whatsoever when they start running!

We went with solid, were not very handy & DIY'd the install. The differences, pro's & con's have been debated on the forum many times & each person is very passionate about their preference, including me! Both are beautiful, but one of the main reasons we opted for solid wood is for the peace of mind. We know no matter what happens to the floor, we can sand these puppies down and redo them several times not just once if we're lucky. We also felt like engineered wood was not as durable and wanted something more solid. As far as the install goes, it's not complicated to do, it's just a lot of work. We bought our own nailer & compressor so we could work on our own schedule. We laid approximately 1000 sf which includes the kitchen, mud room, living room, hallway and large walk in pantry. After the install, we calculated the hours by the going rate and figured out we saved several thousand. I have to admit though, it's one job where I can honestly say, those guys earn every penny they charge.

Okay, with your help, I have returned to reality. We bought this house knowing that we would live here for about ten years. By then, mowing five acres will get the best of us and we will be ready for a condo.

As badly as I want the hardwood, I found comfort in your words and have decided to go with eng. The eng flooring will hold up to our demands and the dog's. Hence, there is good value in eng flooring. Thanks for the help.

Now, on to the next questions. Do we install eng hardwood before the cabinets or after?

Absolutely! I hate my tile floors. Can't say it strongly enough: I hate my tile floors!!! Eventually (hopefully sooner rather than later) the tiles will be replaced with wood. Unfortunately the tile goes under the cabinets, so it won't be an easy job.

We went with rustic red oak in our entire great-room, kitchen, hallway and office. Some sort of natural stone or tile was considered for the kitchen area but we went with wood throughout.

Our final two coats are Bonakemi Traffic, a two-part catalyzed clear coat. It is known for its toughness.

We have lived with it about a year and absolutely love it. And our 120 pound Rhodesian Ridgeback frequently has "play dates" on it with any of his 35 to 65 pound neighborhood buddies. Nearly everyday the neighbor dog comes over and they play over our entire great room.

As far as hardwood vs. UV cured engineered, I prefer hardwood all the way. To me one of the big benefits of hardwood is the repairability factor.

With the UV cured oxide finishes on engineered wood if there are scratches or you need to refinish it you have to take ALL of the finish off and even sand slightly into the 1/8" thick veneer of real wood on top. And then you lose that oxide finish as you have to go ahead and go with a regular finish at that point.

You should double check this as their may be ways to repair and refinish small sections of pre-finished engineered floor since I did my research.

I do think the prefinished floors are great for the DIY people since there is a lot less labor involved with install.

I went with engineered hardwood on the 2nd floor and 3/4" solid red oak on the 1st. The 2nd floor looks good but it's not as durable as the solid hardwood. I wish I would of gone solid hardwood for the 2nd floor but it's not that bad that I'm thinking of replacing it in the coming years. For me solid hardwood is worth it.

Oxide finish WILL scratch. Big dogs and hardwoods (engineered or solid) generally do not mix. The problem with oxide it refinishing it is MUCH more difficult than other finishes. I have a very active 70 pound pit bull who is a house dog and knew she would be hard on the floors, so I selected unfinished white oak and finished them with Waterlox. Waterlox is a modified tung oil finish that actually soaks into the wood instead of just sitting on top as other finishes do. The real beauty of it is that it can be easily spot repaired. Just dab a bit of new finish on a scratch and the repair is done. And finishing the floor with waterlox is a REALLY easy DIY job. Lots of threads about waterlox in the flooring forum.

My advise...order a couple samples of flooring that have an oxide finish and test them. They DO scratch!!! The warranty that they have covers only walk-through failure of the finish...meaning it totally wears out. It does not cover scratches.

I think the order of installation depends on the method you're using to install the eng. wood. If a "floating" floor, it goes in after the cabinets, with a molding to cover the expansion gap. If it's a nail-down or glue down install, then it can go under the cabs or after the cabs. But I think the cab guys prefer to go before the floor, just to prevent damage to the floors from cab install. The cabinets would go on top of plywood to raise them to the level of the floor, so you don't lose toekick height.

Well I know you said you decided but I can't hold back: We have both real wood and engineered hardwood ( oak) and I hate our Engineered hardwood. There is absolutely no comparison to our real wood floors in terms of warmth and durability. The engineered wood scratches very, very easily, contrary to what I was told about its fancy shmancy teflon hard coating that resists scratches.Not! I also find tiny little gaps in the planks depending on humidity and temp and it drives me crazy when the kids spill something. I'm not one to cry over spilled milk but I know some of it seeps through the cracks and dries under there, no matter how quickly we try to wipe it up. Yuck! We never have that littly gap problem with our real wood floors and our real wood floors don't scratch much at all. Not sure if it's a problem with our install or not but I thought you should know. Good luck.

lodalady (and others who are considering wood floors),

While our house is being built, we are living with engineered Brazilian cherry. It is not to my taste, but beside that, this floor must be installed right on the slab because it is hard as a rock and hard on my legs when I stand on it for any length of time. I don't know the finish because we're just renting this townhouse, but it scratches VERY easily it seems to me because we have tried to be very careful--pads on all the furniture legs, lifting chairs instead of pushing them, etc. And we have ugly white scratches on the floor.

I wanted solid wood in our house, and after almost a year trying to find prefinished I liked (and could afford) I decided to look into site-finished. I got an installer recommendation from a carpenter friend of ours and he bought our character-grade white oak and installed it in our house. We are finishing with Waterlox (first coat on now) and it is GORGEOUS. If it scratches, we will be able to patch it up with more finish. You can't do that with prefinished.

And the upshot is--it was CHEAPER than prefinished. I have told several people, look into site-finished. It's more beautiful, you have a great choice of finishes, stains, etc. I am thrilled with it. I can't remember how much it was exactly, but no more than $7/foot (installed) and probably less. (I would put up a picture but the floor is now totally covered because the painters are doing the second coat this week).

- Magpie