We have a brand new home and two guys spent all day on their hands and knees doing the hand scraping with the grain. Rather than the side to side scraping that rips the grain out, this kind of distressing leaves the beauty of the wood but makes the floors less pristine, thus no worry about furniture and dog damage. Rough spots and "chatter" pick up the stain and this is what we wanted in our new home. We looked for engineered but the only "distressed" we found looked obviously done by machine, with ripples rather than irregular scrapes and chatter that we wanted. Plus, we get the stain and finish we want since we went with real 3/4 inch solid oak, and did not have to settle for a prefinished product. The home is a country style with pine trim, wood windows, and beadboard wainscoating, all stained, so it goes with it pretty good.

Hello, I am looking at the Appalachian Excel hardwood flooring with evershine. Has anyone had experience with this brand? Thank you in advance. Here is a link that might be useful: Walnut flooring by Appalacihan

Okay...I'm just going to do a 'girly' kitchen with pink :) Jack and Michelle just bought this cute cottage, with quite the front garden. Michelle is planning to put lots of pink roses in the garden and would like to put some in the kitchen, too. From Pink kitchen The kitchen is not in bad shape...and they really can't afford a major remodel right now. Jack wants some kind of wood floors, but otherwise only asks that she not paint the cabinets pink. So, Michelle finds an inspiration kitchen (on Gardenweb) that she loves and knows it will look great with the wood floors. It's a bit fancy, but they don't have kids...and they have a separate family room, so Michelle wants this to be her 'girl space' for tea with friends. From Pink kitchen She finds a similar chandelier and decides to go with the antique brass hardware, like her inspiration picture. From Pink kitchen If they install the flooring themselves and paint the cabinets, the backsplash and marble should be affordable! So, Michelle's thinking of using roses on the backsplash. But not just any roses...finally she finds something she likes. From Pink kitchen They have a dining table from their previous house that they want to use in the kitchen and Michelle finds some chairs at an estate sale. They even came with the pillows. From Pink kitchen From Pink kitchen So, now for some more roses...maybe some wallpaper, not too different than those cute little pillows. From Pink kitchen And some pink crystal knobs for the cabinets...on sale, no less! From Pink kitchen Now, with her painted hutch, white table cloth and bouquet of roses...she's finally done :) From Pink kitchen

SJ McCarthy, our contract is stated we are responsible for the materials and we pay for the labor. Unfortunately we never met nor discuss with the owner but only discussed in details ( in the proposal) with the project manager who is the solely the carpenter.) We just found out there were a lot of the DETAILS from the proposal were not explained (per the PM,but who knows) in detail to the owner or almost like "bait and switch" - for example like item #2- he spent more time because the owner did not get him another helper to help him- I told him this should not be the customer's expenses-Anyway we are willing to pay for it. The owner was offering to renew and establish a new contract from the original contact ( we felt that he cherry picking the items from the proposal, we marked them up then again he decided not to included) for the unfinished works . Once he agreed in our 2nd meeting (another example: he agreed tiling our study room to be included from the original contact in our 1st meeting then when he write the REVISED CONTRACT- he wants to charge us ), but again we are facing the same old stories-he tried to change the wording. We were burned so many times and now we diligently review line by line knowing the owner's personality. He kept saying he lived by the contract-then I told him then he should honor the low estimated to install our engineering hardwood floor including removing the carpet-in the end he says he would honor but he did not including the cost in the new REVISED contract which we add into it - we are so tired with his games. So now we put a contingency - once we agree with the new contract, no more additional expenses from the previous work was done- and we do agree that we need to be notified first and need both signatures for additional expenses from the new contract. and no more point finger of "not included" since we have discussed in detailed and are in the contract. The new addition has a hardwood floor installed - with Dri-core. Once hardwood floor was installed- they are some areas squeak- we were told by PM -put a marked up then he would fasten without explaining to us-these would be additional ridiculous charges (PM told the owner, too-we told PM that they should explain it to us- ) Regarding the installing the engineering hardwood floor is for our existing rooms(concrete slabs that has plywood already)- we are told just to put a vapour barrier. Is it possible to let me know what brands for the glues have to be moisture resistant ($2/sf) or moisture PROOF ($3/sf).? The manufacture instruction suggests to use Franklin Tongue and Groove adhesive (cross linking polyaliphactic emulsion glue) www.titebond.com -any suggestions? This Applachian engineering hardwood floor - FLOATING only needs GLUE between the wood (tongue and groove per the manufacture manual ) then would be FLOAT - this is not to be GLUE DOWN on our concrete floor (could be glue down if necessary but not in our case). Here is the website- on PAGE 9 http://www.appalachianflooring.com/uploads/general/documents/engineered-installation-guide.pdf We trust the PM and we pay for it- we just want to move on and complete the project-It has been almost 10 months. We have to do what we have to do to protect ourselves now- The owner refuses to install our towel bar in our new shower without charging us, and we told him we will take care them by ourselves. I will update this post and hoping for a better solution. Thank you