I'm under some time pressure to decide what to do with a new floor - some complexities in the building which limit me to a certain thickness and the need to complement an existing color (kitchen tile and drop down to living room). Have looked at Home Depot, Lowes and Lumber Liquidators, but was just scared away from the 3rd by reviews here. I'm kind of liking the Home Legend Bamboo Sapelli from Home Depot, but was afraid after reading about formaldehyde. This is the info on their site, in addition to a statement about how their products will not pollute the air, I found this info: Composition: Bamboo Ingredient Name: Formaldehyde CAS-nr.: 50-00-0 Free Emission: Health: - Risk: - I have no idea what this means beyond that there is some formaledhyde in there. Can someone help me interpret? Anyone have this product?

Some manufacturers have higher standards of width, thickness, and milling than others. One manufacturer might produce a 3 inch wide board at +/- 1/100 inch, whereas another might be +/- 1/16" inch. Go for the higher standard as it will result in a better quality install. How do you determine who has the highest standards? Check with the flooring installation pros who use the stuff day in and day out. Also consider buying your wood local so that off-spec boards can be returned. Most flooring manufacturers are not in the forestry or logging business and many don't even operate their own sawmills and instead buy green or dried lumber on the regional lumber markets. That said, there are a few companies who are vertically integrated like Aacer flooring in Wisconsin who own their own woodlands and sawmills. The big box stores generally offer wood flooring made to low price points. How do they do this? They make it thinner, use lower cost woods, use cheaper plies in engineered products, and import from SE Asia. As long as you understand the specifications of what you are buying, you can compare apples to apples. Also beware that aluminum oxide pre-finished wood floor finishes can scratch, regardless of who makes it. If the floor has a gloss or semi-gloss sheen, then such scratches will be noticeable. This is especially so with darker colored floors where the surface scratches appear as light streaks. You might want to consider a satin or matte sheen if you wear your street shoes around the house and/or have kids.

I wonder why your towels are coming out crispy. Do you have very hard water? Have you tried calling Bosch customer service? We use either 7th Gen or Biokleen laundry detergent - I prefer the liquids for less mess, seems like those powders end up all over the place! - in our FL with moderately hard water and we never have crispy towels. (We have Macy's Charter Club "Classic Solid" towels, nothing fancy at all. Well priced on sale and hold up beautifully.) I don't put up with crispy ANYTHING in the laundry! Fabric softeners can interfere with towels' absorbency, just as an FYI. I did just read today about putting a couple of clean (old is OK) tennis balls in the dryer with the towels to help keep them extra soft and fluffy. Cheaper version of those dryer balls, I guess! I haven't tried it with towels, although I do that with things like jackets and comforters. Might be worth a shot. Just to clarify - is it that the appearance of the Wamsuttas isn't crisp enough but they're still crisp in texture? Or are they just plain soft? Which ones do you have? They make several 400TC styles. I'm thinking about getting the Egyptian cotton "comfort soft" ones but I am very much a soft-sheets gal (the modal - just a fancy name for rayon, BTW - and jersey sheets are too clingy though) and I don't want to get them if there's any crispness to them, especially since they're right at the top of my budget. I'm getting tired of the buy-return cycle. I couldn't give a hoot about whether they wrinkle, they're going to wrinkle the first time I sleep on them anyway, and the coverlet and shams hide the sheets/pillowcases anyway. :-) They're rather pricey but did you know that you can purchase the Westin Heavenly Bed sheets that you rave about (the ones used in the hotels are actually a cotton-poly blend! the poly does reduce the wrinkling, FWIW)? Westin Store sheets department

@Kristel Quintana - if your joists are too warped for tile, they are probably too warped for vinyl planks. If this is the case, I would recommend sheet vinyl instead. And NO sheet vinyl does NOT have to be the ugly sort. There are some stunning visuals in sheet vinyl that do NOT look like wood. In fact, you can get some STUNNING slate look floors that would look amazing next to the bamboo and the cabinets. Please, please, please assess your "flatness" quotient for the vinyl planks. Double and triple check your floor. The best way to do that = remove the existing vinyl. The existing embosed sheet vinyl needs to come out anyway....you might as well do it to see what your subfloor flatness rating sits at. Flooret is like all other planked vinyl....it needs SUPER FLAT ("perfect" comes to mind). If you realize your existing subfloor isn't going to cut it, I HIGHLY recommend looking at a sheet product to keep your preparation costs down. In other words, replace "like with like".