This post has come to life again, so for anyone seeking it out because they have the same problem, I wanted to jump in with some personal experience. After the oak floors in our new-construction house began cupping and buckling (the builder had rushed the build, since he was trying to finish a spec house on the same deadline, but had since decamped to another state due to a sex scandal), we saved for a few years and replaced it with engineered cherry flooring. This probably would have been about the same time as the OP's post, which as of this comment is 13 years old; the manufacturer was a Swedish company called Kährs, and since our local distributor had just started carrying it, there were no red flags in terms of bad reviews or negative customer feedback. That cherry floor looked great--for about ten minutes. EVERYTHING scuffed and scratched it. A puppy just innocently living its life? Scratches galore. Someone dropping anything heavier or sharper than a pillow? A guaranteed ding. A kid running a toy car over it? A tell-tale track of scuffs. Anyone wearing shoes (and I'm not talking stilettos)? Scuffs, scratches, and dents. It was ridiculous, like, we couldn't believe how quickly and easily the floor accumulated damage. Whatever finish was on that cherry, it did absolutely NOTHING to protect against ordinary wear and tear. We tried everything to clean, protect, and rehabilitate that floor. Shoes, even slippers, became forbidden in the house. We had a network of rugs from one end of the house to the next. Every chair not only sat on a rug, it had felt floor protectors and ugly wool socks on its feet. We swiffered like mad. For ten years, all the measures we took were futile, and just ended up causing us added aggravation and frustration. Finally we gave up, realized we were going to have to bite the bullet and install our THIRD hardwood floor in fifteen years, and replaced every square foot of the cherry. This time, we went for a harder wood (hickory), though the major problem with the Kährs had obviously been the finish. We put in a fairly pricey but beautiful hand-scraped wide-plank floor (Baroque Flooring Bavarian XL) and it was FABULOUS--everything the Kährs wasn't. It was gorgeous, it was tough as nails (pets were no problem!), and it was easy to clean. The moral of this story: Sometimes there's just no way around a bad product, except to replace it. The sooner you can afford to do it, the happier you'll be.

You guys have definitely cemented that I should follow my own gut instincts so thank you all for sharing thoughts!! I knew that I should go with my gut, but I just needed a reminder and you have provided this (I live alone so no one to talk through interior design things living with me). :) BTW I have been trying to find a golden oak floor (not so much orange as gold) for several months now. I looked at about 15 hardwood stores in my city, looked at every major hardwood brand available in my city - and in the end, I found *only one company* that had a true golden oak hardwood. I saw more dismal toned, grayish or overly dark hardwood floors than I would have thought possible. It is all designed for this kind of espresso and silver metal look that is trendy right now (and is in every Starbucks where I live). I am aiming more for a sunny, warm, kind of hybrid southern European look. This post was edited by Scarlett001 on Sat, May 11, 13 at 21:26

SJ McCarthythank you for your very long process description and NWFA suggestion. With all the risks that proper preparation requires I think I just have to dodge the bullet and pay someone to do it. It really isn't just applying the stain with a brush kinda thing. I emailed seven companies. Four from NWFA and three from neighbors' recommendations. Just few moments ago I had one of them here to look at the stairs. He is certified has all the proper training and certifications. He seemed knowledgeable and explained all the steps. He will have to re-sand. It will be a 3-4 day job depending on how many stain coats are needed. He uses DuraSeal stains and Bona Traffic HD water based seal and has training to work with those. Each coat needs 24-48h to dry. Then he will have to do another 2-3 coats of the seal. His professional opinion was also that the stairs did not turn yellow because of the covering, but they turned yellow because the previous company used an oil based poly. They might have also applied the seal when stain wasn't dry enough. He is almost certain that the amber coloring from the photos is oil based. He never heard of floors turning yellow because they were covered. That being said, he told me I have a good chance winning a small claims court. That the photos should be sufficient. The stairs were first finished in March, we covered the newly stained steps with protective brown contractor's paper, since there was still construction and painting happening. In July we discovered that there is yellowing present. Since July I've been contacting the company to fix it. They refused because they claim that it is not a warranty issue since it is our fault that we covered them, and that is what caused the yellowing. However, the best changes in court would be with two expert opinions. What I should have done was getting an inspector's report and document the yellowing properly. My mistake was sanding the stairs down before finding a new company. Now I cannot get an inspector to examine it. The reason I had my trusted carpenters to sand down the entire yellowed staircase was because our remodel has finished, and I didn’t want a yellow staircase in the house. I was also worried someone else wouldn't be as careful, and do more damage on brand new painted baseboards and stair skirts. Most importantly I knew sanding it down completely will be a huge mess and didn’t want all the dust on our stuff. I wanted to move into a clean house. Now, there will still be sanding just not as much as the heavy sanding. Even the walls were covered in sand. It was awful...

Do choose your overall look for the kitchen, thinking about what component will be hardest/most expensive to change if you start to dislike it. I wouldn't put wood look vinyl or tile next to natural hardwood - I just don't like the way they look next to each other - although overall, I think wood look tile is a great look. So, I would be looking for a natural stone look tile or vinyl - stay far away from tile with a pinkish undertone, and choose one that matches the overall warmth (ie cool colors vs warm colors) of the rest of the adjacent spaces. That will be about as "timeless" as you can get. Sometimes the classic black & white square look doesn't fit the character of the rest of the house, sometimes it is perfect - so keep that in mind, too.