I usually fall UP the steps, which is very hard on your pretty little shins.... Now I have a carpeted stair story. There was an elegant elderly couple in my childhood neighborhood; he a judge, she a portrait painter; both of them very tall, with excellent carriage, and adorable personalities. One day, she was upstairs putting on her hat to go to a luncheon with her garden club, and she saw a crib mattress that her daughter was coming to pick up later in the day. So to get it down the stairs most efficiently, she positioned it at the top of the stairs, sat down on it, and rode it down the stairs, in her crepe afternoon dress and her white gloves and her flowered hat. At that moment, the taxi driver arrived at the front door, which was of course open except for the screen door. Just as he raised his hand to knock on the door, his perfectly proper passenger came sailing across the front hall on the baby mattress. Without a word of explanation, she stood up, settled her skirts, said "Good morning!" and went right out the door. I can only imagine the expression on his face.

My son currently works as a 3rd party engineer for one of the felt rug padding and carpet padding manufacturers Rug Pad USA, Mohawk, Shaw.... and I've actually asked him this same exact issue. I'm a designer down in Savannah GA and our summers are as humid and muggy as they come. I asked him specifically what pads would work to avoid the "Sweating" issue. My clients and I complain about this all the time - the pads get glued to the floor. One of my clients had to replace a portion of their hardwood to fix this issue. He has an engineer background does this for a living, thus most of what he said went over my head....but here's what I gathered... - A 100% felt rug pad is actually recycled polypropylene fibers but it won't ever stain, nor sweat, but the rug has to be large enough not to move. But with smaller rugs, you need to stick with a rubber or latex product to prevent "sweating" and sticking. - Felt and rubber rug pads are made with either synthetic latex (lower cost) or Natural rubber (more expensive), he thought that both should be dry enough that they shouldn't sweat between your floors. So this is what I have been recommending to my clients. I also asked him about the different materials - since I told him one of my clients floors needed to be replaced. Heres what he said "your flooring surface finishes are whats important, not whats underneath them, and to be especially careful with vinyl, acrylic, and laquered finishes. Some PVC padding, not all, can leave an imprint on this type of flooring if they don't get the formula correct, or if they use cheap fillers rather in place of proper materials, or if they haven't been tested on before. Pads that tend stick to floors, melt, sweat, are always made with pvc and essentially all come from low grade suppliers in China." Some food for thought :) - Hope this helps

idrive65, Adorable model, what is your Dogs name and breed? Do you have to keep the toenails trimmed, how do you keep them short? We have two miniature poodles and a Collie and are concerned about adding a hardwood floor to the Kitchen. Even though we think that it will look great with the white cabinets and be much more comfortable than our hard tile floor! Is this White Oak barn wood a hard or soft wood? Your floors are beautiful, where did you find these and are they expensive? We live in the Mid-west, are these rare? Thank you for sharing! roseofblue Aw thanks. The pup is supposedly pure Labrador retriever, but we got him third hand and he's a mighty skinny specimen for a lab. I don't trim his nails as often as I should because he hates it, I do it badly, and twice I've cut him (ouch!) so he runs and hides when those clippers come out. I may try the dremel route mentioned upthread. White oak is a hardwood but not as hard as many imported species, of which there are quite a few between Hickory and the one imported that I listed, Jatoba. (Ipe, used for decking, is 3684 and considered fireproof!) Upstairs we mixed white with red oak and antique chestnut. In one area where dh wheeled on office chair back and forth (!) you can see wear on the chestnut, a little on the red oak, and none on the white oak boards. According the janka scale: White pine: 420 So. yellow pine: 690-870 Cherry: 950 Red Oak: 1290 White Oak: 1360 Hard Maple: 1450 Hickory: 1820 Jatoba (aka "Braz. Cherry") 2350 I agree with all who say the finish matters. The aluminum oxide finishes on pre-finished floors is very durable. Others have site finished with waterlox which is easily touched up as needed, you can search for photos of ccoombs floors for photos of beautiful waterloxed oak floors. My dh owns an flooring company that sells only antique remilled products so he made the floors for us. We actually kept a lot of boards that might be culled for a customer because I wanted a "busy" floor. Thankfully it matches the dog hair and hides the scratches very well!

IMO a rug is not necessary to protect the wood floor. I also installed wood floors when I remodeled and they still look fine. I actually think a rug might cause more issues than prevent because you might not notice damp spots or spots with the rug. With the wood I can immediately see if there is something on the floor and just wipe it off. You have to clean around and deal with a rug and I love the clean expanse of the wood and see no reason to break it up with a rug that serves no purpose. Also some rugs cause issues with wood floors. I don't recall which kind - obviously not the kind of classic good quality area rugs one puts in a living room but some of the inexpensive synthetic with synthetic backing. I don't need any kind of mat for my feet - I wear comfortable supportive mule type shoes for kitchen safety anyway.