onelady1dog2girls, Thank you for thinking of me. I did check out the website and that Sunset Glow Hickory sounds beautiful (and was pretty in the picture) but it is a solid wood only. I live in the preserved wetlands and my floor is concrete with no basement due to the area I live in. I have made up my mind that I only want a prefinished engineered wood floor. I also have 8 foot ceilings. I was not that crazy about the new version of the 5" wide Engineered wood flooring from Brazilian Direct despite really liking the company and Shannon. I loved their solid wood samples last year and I really loved their solid Kempas Samples. I wish they had engineered wood floors in a 3.25" width. A solid wood floor over a plywood floor will raise my floor up much higher than my tiled foyer floors and my kitchen floor and make my ceiling look lower in my living room and dining room (which both are my two room home office). My family room has a Cathedral ceiling so it could handle the floor being raised despite the kitchen floor lower but I think solid wood is not right for my type of concrete sub-floor. I preferred Brazilian Direct's engineered wood floor sample from last year despite a lesser veneer sawn layer on top. I just really feel I am leaning towards a floor no wider than 4" and preferably 3.25 to 3.5" wide to minimize cupping problems. I really like the finish on the BR-111 3.25" wide plank samples I have here that is not too glossy but has a drop of gloss. Despite the 3/8th being the same height as my new Porcelain Tiles, I just wish the planks were 1/2" thick with the same 3 MM wear layer. But then again, the semi-gloss finish on the Coswick Quartersawn Oak Engineered floors is nice also.

When I started shopping for flooring, I scoured houzz for ideas and visited a multitude of stores, from speciality retailers, to big box stores and finally found Lumber Liquidators. (Sidebar: I think their name is very misleading as it implies downscale products ~ inferior or lesser quality flooring. Not true.) They sell flooring sourced from all over the world (including the USA) so to associate their brand with China is misleading. It was the Lumber Liquidator staff and houzz that educated me about flooring (kudos to houzz!) and I ended up choosing reclaimed pine and the natural rubio monocoat. I couldn't be happier with my decision. I wouldn't hesitate to shop at Lumber Liquidators. I'm not a laminate consumer, regardless of source. Overall, I believe that this laminate story will end up being about the safety testing of compressed wood products, regardless of the source (think IKEA and the many manufacturers who use the same materials in manufacturing consumer products). I'm disheartened that Lumber Liquidators was considered guilty BEFORE anything has been proven outside of a 60 Minutes show. Bah!

I have no experience with LL but have heard the same things as others have posted. I have prefinished bamboo and floating cork in my house, both from Cali. I am happy with the quality, but was unhappy with the sales experience I had with the cork. They did bait and switch. With that said, they called for a standard service check, and when I related my experience, they gave me a partial credit. So bad selling experience, but good follow up. Also, Lowes sells Cali and they will frequently have better prices, especially if you wait until the product has been on the market awhile. When I did the cork, it was three bedrooms and a large hall. Working full time as meant it took me a while to finish. At the end, I was a little short on material, so I ordered another box from Lowes. It was considerably less than I had paid a couple of months before (the lowes price was roughly equiv to the direct Cali price originally).

$4/ft^2 for the wood I want isn't horrible; I just thought maybe there would be decent quality wood available for less. A coworker of mine is also renovating his home and I believe he recently got some solid hardwood for less than $3/ft^2, but he had to drive out to central Pennsylvania to get it, over 2 hours away. Not sure if it was prefinished or unfinished. What about something like this? https://www.lumberliquidators.com/ll/c/Natural-Red-Oak-Major-Brand-LQRO2N/10045491 Wow, only $2.67/ft^2. I determined from the SKU # that this is the kind my local LL is selling for $2.54/ft^2. This is the cheapest prefinished red oak I would consider (i.e. don't think I'd like gunstock) where the amount I need is currently in stock at my local LL: https://www.lumberliquidators.com/ll/c/Red-Oak-Mayflower-MFRO2-A/10044313 It sells for $2.97/ft^2 and has only 5% waste. Here's the next cheapest at $3.59/ft^2, 10% waste: https://www.lumberliquidators.com/ll/c/Natural-Red-Oak-Builder%27s-Pride-PRRO2N/10030007 and another at $3.67/ft^2, 5% waste: https://www.lumberliquidators.com/ll/c/Red-Oak-Mayflower-MFRO3-A/10044306 and one at $3.79/ft^2, 5% waste: https://www.lumberliquidators.com/ll/c/Butterscotch-Oak-Builder%27s-Pride-PRBS2N/10028427 I prefer select but natural is fine too. Seems like most of these hardwoods have 5-10% waste. I think I'd order more excess than that anyway just to be on the safe side, as long as I can return what I don't use save a few planks. Considering the size of the area I need to floor, 10% extra doesn't seem excessive. Johnson, when you said "up north", are you saying that red oak wood is cheaper in the Northeast since we have these trees in abundance? If so, at least something up here can be had cheaply. :) Also, sorry for not answering your question earlier, SJ. I have a GC and I'm pretty sure he'll do it himself, or else he'll sub it out. I plan to get the boards nailed down. I had previously been considering laminate but decided that if I want to invest in the good stuff, it's now or never as it would be difficult to redo all that flooring once I already live in the house.