Did you ask your contractor? Hardwood is, well, a solid piece of wood. :-) An "engineered" floor is a top layer of "real" wood with some kind of manufactured material below, often plywood. The wood layer is usually thick enough to get a couple or three sandings should refinishing become necessary down the road. Mike

Cp, thank you for those photos and again for all your input. Your staircase is beautiful: I think I’ve covered the rest of your questions. bedroom one dimensions are 14’1” x 13’8.5”. Closet is currently 8.5’ by 5’1”. In the kitchen if you're planning on keeping the fridge where it is, I'd put a prep sink on the island. Otherwise move the fridge to the right of the sink. (Although I believe the prep sink is a better option since then the fridge and pantry are next to one another making it easier to put away groceries or take food stuff out when cooking. —I don’t like anything in the island but would consider your suggestion about the other option. I recently set up a cardboard life size layout of the kitchen (because I’m just that nuts I suppose) and felt good about the arrangement that we currently have. But I’m not married to it. The weird jog in the kitchen is unintentional (at least I think!) The change there was in an effort to shave off some square footage and I asked to see the kitchen (and rec room) 1-2 feet narrower. It looks to me like he moved part of the wall, but somehow not all of it. That wall will stay straight whatever dimension we end up with. Don't love the afterthought door out to the backyard from the living room. -I haven’t given much thought to it. For me it could stay or go. Double doors never work as well. First of all they leak air and air leaks in. Secondly where do you put light switches? Better to have a single door with sidelights. -I know there are disadvantages. But there also some pluses- much easier to move big furniture through. Mainly I just like the way they look. I don’t plan on them looking anything like in the rough elevation though- I’m thinking 3/4 glass doors. Clothing can't turn corners in closets. A bedroom closet isn't important enough to need double doors into a walk in closet. -yes....this needs to be fixed When you walk into a house, a bedroom should not be the very first thing you see. -I know this is a big qualm most people would have with this plan. I don’t think it would be the FIRST thing people would notice when opening the front door and I personally don’t mind it there. I can see why most people would. Do you have plans that show how the house sits on the land? That's something any good architect would do from the start. -No, though he did visit the site. The master bedroom suffers from the same problem as bedroom 1. -We’re in Tennessee. We are adding a window to both bedroom one and master because I’m a fan of natural light. It will face west but I don’t think that matter much as we won’t usually be in the bedrooms when the sun would affect us. Again clothes can't turn corners. At the very least have the clothes on the two long walls and have the entrance to the closet (a single door) as you enter the bedroom. I have thought about moving the entrance closer to the bedroom door. I don’t know how I feel about having those close possibly cross paths. Whatever route we go, it won’t be double doors. And if it’s kept on the wall it’s currently on, I was thinking of moving it to the far right so we’d have room on that wall for a piece of furniture. Also again are you ok if your spouse turns on the light in the bathroom in the middle of the night? I’d sleep right through it I’m sure. :) I don’t suspect that would happen; the few times either of us have stumbled to the bathroom (only one bath upstairs at our current house, not a master bath) I do note that we don’t turn the main light on anyway. Too bright. The hidden room is cute but if it were me, I'd rather have an extra closet in the hallway and a window in the bathroom. -I’m committed to the idea of the fort room. I worked and worked to try to figure out a way to have both an exterior bathroom that was not aJack and Jill along with the secret room but couldn’t come up with another solution. Neither could the architect. I’ve thought about doing a solar tube light in the bathroom...but I’m concerned about roof leaks (metal roof). If I could warm up to the idea of Jack and Jill maybe I’d change my mind about this, but I’m stuck on the disadvantages.

You have a mixture of issues. Issue #1 = Pine does not like to take a stain. It just doesn't like to. It is always a crap shoot when attempting to add a colour to pine or fir. Maple is another wood that is tricky to stain. That's the OVER ARCHING issue. Issue #2 = Old wood has character. It has lived a life already...it is now being asked to live another lifetime. It will be MUCH drier than any other wood anyone has seen. So it takes a special touch (ie. skill = cost) to get an old floor look AMAZING. Issue #3 = Only the SECOND floor the company has worked with Rubio. Rubio is a VERY special product that requires a VERY SPECIAL skill and a VERY GOOD training history with it. You have a low(er) cost company with VERY LITTLE history with Rubio. Rubio needs PERFECT sanding technique. That's why it costs the same to refinish in Rubio than it does to refinish with a high-end poly. The SANDING is painstaking in its detail. You need a VERY skilled crew to work the sanding to the point where the wood is ready for Rubio. And OLD dry wood that DOES NOT like to take a stain = very tough ask. A Rubio refinish *SHOULD take the same 3-7 days (or more) as a regular polyurethane refinish. How long did the company spend in your house working on your floors? How many square feet did you have to refinish?

Too many samples here.. And whatever you choose will change based on location, lighting, surrounding colors, etc, and that will vary throughout your home. I also like using a stain without a custom mix. If you have to re-do a small section later, there's no problem matching. Choose something you like and don't stress about how it appears in one particular spot; the overall effect is far more important. FWIW, we redid our red oak floors using weathered oak and couldn't be happier. We were looking for something that added a little grey but still looked natural, and it does exactly that. Good luck!