Feisty I have beat you to it, the bathroom downstairs is also brick and I think it is fabulous! Will post pictures, we have a new khaki countertop and Handy Guy is painting the vanity a barn red next week. Having a soft yellow/ gold shower curtain made to hang behind the (new) arched opening over the shower/tub and cabinet person is making enough paneling for the fireplace wall to front the side of the tub. And we are ordering antique finish brass faucets and tapes for sink and shower, yay, the existing satin nickel ones look incongruous with the brick. We may install siding on one long wall of bathroom also but I only want Handy Guy to do this, not the GC's guys. ( I am anxious to get them out of my house, no one seems to own a pencil and paper, they come back endlessly, to do small jobs they could have done in one call, this is true of the electricians, carpenters and drywallers.) Lol, I have even ***pretentiously*** coined a new descriptive phrase for our basement style to encompass the brick floors, siding on interior walls, black wrought iron rails and sconces, etc.... renovated carriage house.

I have heavy counter stools on HW- I use the felt pads on the bottoms of the chairs.I have found the ones that work the best and last the longest have a small tack that pounds into the wood bottom of the chair legs. I have black chairs, so I use the dark pads. These chairs are used daily - alot - and no damage to floor in 9 years of heavy use. On my dining room chairs, I had to remove the small plastic glide before replacing with the ones I described above. I have found that the adhesive felt pads eventually shift and the dog hair sticks to them like crazy.

mtnrdredux - I'd love to see your floors! Love the dark, but they do show every speck of dust, so I might lean towards a medium stain if I ever do these floors again. It's funny, whenever I drop something on my floors and see the new dent I've created, I just shrug my shoulders and tell myself it adds character. A few times we've had to sand and apply more stain and tung oil when I dropped something sharp enough to chip the wood. I couldn't imagine being worried about keeping my floors in pristine condition with how clumsy I am. justgotabme - I'm not sure about trying to age the cabinets. They have a really heavy grain, very different from my pine table, and the natural color tends towards yellow, not brown. What if I end up with a hot mess! I guess then it would at least be easier to convince DH to replace them :) If the uppers weren't arched, I would paint and lightly glaze without a second thought.

Thank you all! I’ll send some photos.the existing floors are engineered. The herringbone is a great idea. I have a sample...it’s actually been difficult to find a herringbone or chevron in a close color to the existing floors so I have a black sample. I’ll send a photo of that as well to get your opinion. I’m leaning towards that option. Underneath the carpet is just the concrete, etc. I was hoping to find something amazing but to no avail.