I don't know, Bumblebeez. I, too, have 3/4" natural prefinished Bruce, about 10 years old. The only place my floor has lightened is at the north-facing French Door. You can see the change from lightest to darkest exactly where the light from the door falls on the floor. The floor is in my dining room, breakfast nook, and kitchen, north-facing except the kitchen, which is windowless in the center of the house. The floor is perfect there, no rugs or natural light on the floor. I do have a thick wool rug under the dining room table, but no mat under it. I just rolled it back to look at the color - it's the same everywhere, no color change under the rug, only where the fade is at the French door. I dunno, maybe cooking grease protects the color? Anyhow, our floor takes plenty of abuse from kids, gkids, friends, cats and dogs, and I love it. It is still beautiful, even though the primary entrance is through the garage, right onto the kitchen floor - no sign of wear at all, despite my being a lousy, lazy housekeeper, and we never take off our shoes in the house, just wipe them on the mat in the garage. It's a great floor - enjoy!

This is only my 2nd post. I so appreciate this forum and all I'm learning. Everyone is so helpful and I'm amazed at the wealth of knowledge and experience among all of you. We are planning a remodel of a home we just moved into that hasn't been touched since it was built nearly 30 years ago! WOW! It was a spec home in 1981 and most everything is "builder's grade." The kitchen is atrocious to say the least. You can imagine how dated and worn out it is. What a challenge to make all the changes necessary within a budget. Anyway, I do have some food for thought on this subject. For the past 12 years I had oak floors in the kitchen of my 1930s Acadian cottage in southeast Louisiana. The kitchen was an addition so we matched the floors in the original house and they were nail down & site finished. My children were young teenagers at the time and very active. We did take our shoes off (all of us) inside the house to help protect the floors, but other than that we did nothing special to baby them. When necessary in the kitchen I only spot cleaned the floor with a damp rag and I would immediately dry it with a soft cloth. I always wiped up spills or dropped ice cubes immediately. I found the floors in the kitchen (and the rest of the house) very beautiful, comfortable to walk on and easy to take care of. We had no problems at all in 12 years. When we sold the house last month there was not even a scratch anywhere throughout the house. In my opinion they looked as good as the day we put them in. That said, there was a day disaster might have struck. I just so happened to be at home when the pipe to the kitchen sink sprung a leak and it was not a drip....but a trickle. I was able to use lots of bath towels to keep up with the leak until help arrived to fix the problem. There was no swelling to the sink cabinet (it was all wood) or the flooring. But, I know if I had not been home and the leak had continued unchecked for hours it would have been a disaster for the floor. Due to that experience alone I may have a tile floor in the kitchen at this house. Then again...I just loved my wood floors in the kitchen! :-)

We just put Bellawood in our kitchen. We have Brazilian cherry 2 1/2" that we got from Lumber Liquidators. I was having similar concerns, but when pricing things it seemed kind of crazy to spend more for unfinished wood (which is what our pricing looked like). Although it's only been 2 weeks, I love it. I've spilled plenty (flour, milk, even paint- all fine) and I was concerned about things getting stuck between the boards, but it really hasn't been an issue. We have three children 7 and under and are tough on just about everything, so it may be a different story in 10 years, but right now, the floor is stunning despite everything that's already been done on it. My husband is doing our whole kitchen and did the floor in a weekend. Another nice part of the pre-finished is that you can immediatly start using the space. Although our kitchen isn't done, we are using it a lot and it was great to be able to use it again. Good luck!

floor specifics, laundry room: we installed tiled slate and I must say not a week now, 6+ years later, goes by when I'm not thankful for this. It's a "lifestyle" choice of course, but we wind up having a lot of soggy laundry around here. One kid (now flown the coop, sadly), swims and sodden gear would strew the floor morning noon and night. And it can all just sit there harmlessly on the slate, no problem. Wet dishtowels -- I toss them in daily from the kitchen -- it's a straight shot from the sink to the laundry room door and I just heave em in. :) dh does yard work and comes in sopping -- *drop*, no problem. Etc. If you're neater maybe you can weather something else, but that slate floor is beautiful in my mind and incredibly functional. Also even though it's slate, it's brittleness is along a plane parallel to the floor not perpendicular, so it's hard. Our sideload washer sits on this and it does some pretty steady spinning and hopping and bouncing, all harmlessly on this hard floor. Highly recommended.