by wood I am mean flooring. Sorry if that was unclear at first.

I've had red oak (the real thing) for 8 years and it looks like the day it was installed. Easy to keep with Bono and a magic mop, maybe 1x every 2 weeks. I should add its just the two of us, but it gets a fair amount of traffic, especially since my house is on the market & lots of people come trucking through.

Ah, whoops, will share anyway then... cabinets are alder with a low voc butternut finish that we really like and we have cork planks that are very easy to keep clean and easy to stand on.

Antique re-milled white oak planks. Durable and with enough character to hide wear and dog hair. :)

We chose Hickory (pecan) because it had the lowest moisture absorbsion of any american wood and is the hardest. We used a floating engineered wood flooring from Harris Tarkett. Prefinished and it has held up for about 4 years now. Only the heaviest things dropped from counter height have made some slight impressions in the wood. We notice it but no guest has. Our planks are unstained and have random 3 inch planks of very dark and light colored wood that is striking. No longer available from HT.

We have site finished oak floors (1 year) and I must say I am a little surprised by how soft they are. We have numerous dents from DS rocking on his chair and from things being dropped while cooking or cleaning up. Most of the dents only show when the light shines a certain way or you look at them from just the right angle. The graining in the floor helps to camoflage them some, but compared to our indestructible Pergo, which had its own set of problems, it seems like a lot of dents in a short period of time.

Totally Confused

The house (built in 1913) came with red oak floors which I had refinished years ago. Once the kitchen reno was completed a few months ago, I had the kitchen floors refinished as there were patches to blend in where a wall had been removed. I've been very happy with these floors for the 20 years I've lived in the hosue.

The rest of the kitchen is all wood, too: maple cabinets with maple BB with black walnut edging. Love it all, it's so warm-looking.

We've had natural maple (unstained) for 20 years. It has held up well, although we have been hard on it. We have extended it into the dining room with our remodel, and now that we'll have a real mudroom type entrance (and no dog, sadly), I have hopes it will last forever.

We have a 1680 house with random width, wide pine floors throughout. In 35 years we have only refinished the kitchen and hallway once as the wood is "newer" in those high traffic areas. When we finally get to remodel in the kitchen , the floors will be sanded and refinished in a natural finish. These floors are very forgiving - even with three Doodles (dogs).

What ever your floor choice is ....you can not do wrong with some kind of wood!!

Walnut. It is softer than the oak i had, but it is prettier. I am definately going to be more careful with this floor than the oak or it will not look so great.

We have birch, which is pretty soft. We are very hard on things, but have really made an effort with this floor, which we have had for about a month now and it's held up well.

Our 44 lb dog's nails did dent, scratch, and gouge the wood, but we put those Soft Paws on her nails and we have no more issues with that.

The dents, scratches, and gouges from the dog do camoflouge themselves well in the wood. In fact, there were at least 5 times in the first week of install where I saw a deep gouge, freaked, bent down close and touched it only to discover it was a natural marking in the wood, not a gouge!

So far, for a softer wood, I am totally happy with birch.

Was installing a new oak floor today. Adjacent is an old oak floor dining room and a new porcelain tiled lobby floor.

I installed solid red oak 5" planks in my kitchen, site finished with golden oak stain and water based poly in a matte finish. It's been almost six months since they were done and they are holding up nicely to two kids, a dog, a cat and a husband who clomps around in his cycling cleats! There are some very fine scratches in some areas, but nothing very noticeable. I really love the way they feel to walk on, especially in bare feet first thing in the morning! Very easy to clean too, with a damp microfiber mop.

We have an engineered wood floor in the rest of the main level of our house, installed 2 years ago, and it has just been installed in the kitchen. We really love it, and the variations in color cover scratches well.

It remains to be seen how we like it in the kitchen, but it has been quite sturdy otherwise.

Here is a link that might be useful: BR-111 Amendoim floors