I plan to put maple engineering wood floor in natural color in my home office. I like its quite, clean look. We don't have kids and pets in the house. I got a few samples from flooring stores. The flooring installer says I should just pick the one I like since first quality products (instead of factory clear out, or seconds) all have good warranties. Is this true? Could anyone please teach me how to tell if one product is better than others? What characteristics should I look for in a sample? What is the reasonable price range for a quality floor? Does brand name of a company matter? What width is ideal? Thank you in advance for your inputs.

I know how you feel! I'm also going through the search, but have more time than you. To make a choice, you have to establish some criteria that you want or don't want. The top of my list is no Chinese made products, so I'm only looking at USA or Canadian sourced and manufactured engineered wood floors. That really narrows down the list quite a bit for me. I also have dogs and you just have to accept that scratches will happen and you will get some patina. It sounds like you want a lighter color, which should help with the the foot/paw prints. A matte finish is also supposed to show less of that, but I found the matte to be too dull looking for me. I am looking at some with a very light gloss, around 20%, which gives it just a bit of sparkle, but should have some of the benefits of less prints, compared to a high gloss floor.

Plenty of misinformation out there. Too many assume the obvious and what others say, including manufacturers. Let's look at a typical 4mm veneer. It will not handle being refinished 4-5 times. You have to think of the micro bevel. It's next to impossible to sand this type of floor without removing the entire bevel unless you have an extremely skilled guy doing the work. The work has to be dead on consistent to achieve if any bevel remains. Bevels were created to mask any irregularities in the the sub floor and the material itself. As an example scenario, some micro bevels will be 1/16" deep, others deeper. 1/16" equals 1.6 mm. An effective first sand would probably need 2mm removed. Any future work will probably remove another 3/64" or 1/16" in a perfect world. In essence, two complete refinish jobs takes 3.0 mm plus off the veneer. Not possible to go any further in my opinion. Original sub floor flatness and the skill of the person doing the work will also dictate what is possible. On a final note, now that I think about it, the bevel has to be removed. Otherwise there will be new finish/stain incompatibility.

thank you, yes that is the brand. I was hoping I could find someone who has used it for reviews and additional photos.