judiegal, your husband is wrong on two counts. First, there are square-edged prefinished hardwoods available. There is one problem with the square edge - you can get something often called "sock-catchers" if the subfloor is not perfectly flat. There are many different depths of bevel available nowadays. We had the microbevel in our previous house to avoid "sock-catchers" and it did not collect debris. I could get the floors completely clean with a microfiber dustmop. (My current house has 107yo heart-pine floors, and I am getting all too familiar with catching debris because it has gaps over 1/4" wide between many boards. Maddening.) It peeves the living daylights out of me to hear people refer to engineered hardwood flooring as not "real" wood. It is just as much "real wood" as solid wood. Call solids solids if that's what you mean. We chose an ashwood engineered flooring for our previous house because NH has massive swings in humidity (we did not have central AC - it would have cost well over $12,000 to install) which can create problems with cupping, buckling, or gapping, and were extremely pleased with it. I cannot TELL you how many dealers and installers tried to bully us into site-finished flooring, even though we could not afford to vacate our house for a week plus, and there was no way we could stay and try to work around the construction and finishing (I would have almost surely been very sick from the stain and finish odors, and let's not even talk about trying to keep the cat and dog hair out of the finish.) Here in New England, the attitude of "we've done it this way for 100 years, we're not going to change now" is rampant! We did not have any problems with the floor delaminating from cat barf, spilled beverages, tracked-in snow, that sort of thing, and the aluminum oxide finish was very durable. The manufacturer, Robbins, did NOT recommend putting any additional finish on after installation. They were nailed down, not glued (the installers checked with Robbins to make sure they could be nailed instead of stapled). The reason why johnatemp thinks she can always spot engineered flooring is because CHEAP engineered floors use a rotary-cut veneer, which looks like plywood; better-quality engineereds have sliced and even quartsawn/riftsawn veneer layers. Another frequent myth about solid wood flooring - it cannot be refinished as many times as people are led to believe. You can only sand them down to the level of the tongue, which is usually less than a third of the thickness of the board. Old (50+ years) floorboards can often be flipped and reused if very carefully pulled up, but that is quite rare in modern flooring. Our floors were warranted for three full refinishings; the veneer layer was a third of the thickness of the board. However, you don't need to completely refinish a hardwood floor unless you have deep gouges or want to change the color. These days, if you want to refresh the finish and remove small scratches and scuffs, you just do something called a screen and recoat. It costs a LOT less than a full refinishing, too. Here are a couple of pictures. The floors are, as I said, from Robbins; style is and color is Tigra.

Interesting thread.....Here in Utah, where we have snow on the ground for months on end, I don't recall ever seeing a white kitchen...ever. Not at upscale open houses, not in the annual Parade of Homes (where prices range from $500K to $2 Million), not ever. And I think that snow-on-the-ground has a lot to do with this! (When I lived in San Antonio in 1997-99, white kitchens were very popular, and I had one installed in the house I built. And that makes sense given San Antonio's heat and humidity -- it just felt welcoming to walk into the white kitchen from the outside.) So, in Utah wood kitchens with granite and SS appliances are the rage, and have been for several years. Popular woods are alder and cherry -- both stained, and left natural, with some subtle glazing. You'll find oak cabinets, too, but not usually in the more expensive homes. You won't find painted cabinets...people here want the warmth of wood, and the ability to see its grain. Lots of back splashes made of interesting tile (glass tiles really haven't caught on yet) or granite. And granite counter tops are found everywhere. Kitchen floors range from wood floors to porcelain tile to travertine. Styles range from traditional to country to western modern...No cutting-edge Architectural Digest modern or NYC modern.

I would like to thank everybody who has taken the time to respond and give their opinions. I want to clarify a couple of things. The "handy man" was my "slang", he is actually a contractor, he's just a "younger" man newer to the contruction business, not one who has been displaced from building homes by the recession like the "other" one we interviewed and received a quote from. The GC from the "big box store" was also one who had been active in the home building side in our town during the boom town years of the mid 2000's. We have actually received a glowing referral from our neighbors who he has done a number of projects for. Live Wire Oak, our friends who have had everything under the sun go wrong with their kitchen remodel had referred us to the first person we attempted to work with. It wasn't the GC we have ended up with. This lady is a KD, who happens to sell cabinets also. After our friends were several months into their debacle we were actually happy we didn't go any further with her. They are close personal friends with her and her husband. We have had a number of contractors look at our plan. The only wall to be taken down is the one in the picture I posted. It is not load bearing. We have a very detailed contract with this young man. He is insured. He plans to be working at our house for a month. As for the budget...I have found that the big box store is a great option for somebody who has unlimited funds. None of the other quotes we received came close to that high amount and were very realistic we found. No, we wouldn't have had to lift a finger if we'd taken their quote and gone with it, but we're not rich people and it wasn't an option. This will be our one and only time that we will ever remodel our kitchen and downstairs half bath and we will never build anything ever. Thank you dilly, badgergal, debrak, chispa and art teacher mom for your hard wood flooring thoughts. It appears we all have I am certainly going to be open to exploring the tile option. I would certainly make the tile flooring heating a priority. We are putting the tile in our half bath with an electric flooring mat. We have paid a sizable deposit to our guy already and I will need to make a quick decision on the floor. I plan on revisiting calling the flooring people tomorrow and seeing if that is an option. We called our contractor today to clarify what we needed to do. Need to move fridge, set up temp kitchen in house somewhere. He takes care of stove and dishwasher. We then spent several hours at our Big Box store today picking up all our other materials. The first KD designer we worked with there working, she helped us and gave us designs layouts, etc for our contractor.. She apologized about the lack of follow through from her co-worker. I am feeling now alot more confident. I will keep the board up to date on what we decide. I'm still torn. In love with wood, but warm tiles wouldn't kill me. Honestly, we were on the north end of the Sandy storm and were very fortunate we didn't sustain damage like so many others. This is a small matter at best and I thank everybody for their thoughts.

Safe to say my Mom loves her new kitchen floor. I wasn't so sure about her criteria (mostly she was focused on maintenance) but from a practical standpoint it is a gem. The overall design with the swirled colours hides really well, no seams, it is soft underfoot and no glue had to be used for the installation. In terms of appearance it is very contemporary looking but very warm. I have tile in my current kitchen (in a quite nice mid tone gray) and never again would I have tile - it shows everything, its hard to stand on and goodbye to anything you drop. Not for me - kitchen needs to be practical above all else in my book. Wood would be nice but I have to do engineered (concrete construction)and I wouldn't do engineered in a kitchen (too much risk of water damage for me). Item: Authentic View Concrete FiberFloor (#CA042\Copper\Overall) Supplier: Centura Floor and Wall Fashions through Carastan Flooring Manufacturer: Tarkett Manufacturing Region: Specs: FloorScore Certified Cost: Installed: $800 - Initial Quote: $1168.73 Warranty: 10 years