@Alan Ward I also noticed the Max is 8mm thickness and heavier, while rigid is 5.5 mm thick. Not sure how that affects things. @kaycreighton1 thank you! Initially we were just looking at Max. the stairs themselves we are carpeting and thankfully the hallway/loft upstairs is mainly above the garage, so not TOO worried about a lot of noise. From what I've read Max is still more soundproof than Rigid as well right?

I have Bianco Sardo. I really like this granite, itôs a good mix of black, white, grey and taupe. I know this type of granite has fallen out of favour these last years, but it is a nice neutral stone and absolutely bomb proof as far as stains are concerened. Hereôs a close up pic: If you are interested in more pictures of my kitchen, Iôve added a link. HTH, Petra Here is a link that might be useful: White kitchen in Southern Spain

The first step to figuring out the furniture placement would be to either use graph paper or an online floor planner, lay the spaces out to scale and draw little pieces to reperesent your furniture, also drawn to scale. Then you can slide the little pieces around like a jig saw puzzle to see how and where they fit. I like to use the scale of 1 square equaling either 3" or 6". (3" increments is useful when planning kitchen layouts, but 6" is usually fine for whole floorplans.) My guess is that you have room for the table and chairs, but not much else, in the dining room. Will there be a window in the dining room? If not the hutch could go along the outside wall in there. But I'd pick a window for that spot, if possible; I like light. Would a round/oval table work better for the new space? I see that's what's drawn in the original floor plan, and depending on the size of your table, it might be what you need to prevent a hip banger on the corners of the table as you move from kitchen, to dining, to living room. But, not everyone is as clumsy as I am. :-)

I would suggest you invest a few bucks and purchase a box of the product. Samples are too small to get a good idea of what is about unfold. The company photos have plenty of "character". The word "character" is a nice way of saying "not uniform". That means there will be PLENTY of movement with knots, mineral streaks and colour variations. That all adds up to "busy". As for other people's room photos, remember that lighting is EVERYTHING. With natural pics (non-professional photos without a photo studio/studio lighting) you will see how a product really looks in certain settings....but you must be fully aware of the direction of the room (north facing? vs. southern exposure?), the wall colour, the amount of natural light from windows, time of day, amount of artificial light, tint of the bulb, furniture colours, etc, etc. etc. Way too many things to calculate the "real" appearance of the floors in YOUR space. Only one thing will tell you how "dark" these floors will appear in your space = bringing a box of product home and laying it in your space. Then view the space through all 5 lighting situations in a day (yep...there are 5 different forms of light...so it is best to view it through all of them). The uniformity - or lack there of - already seems to concern you. Which tells me this "character" product is probably not a thing for you. You can get the same COLOUR range (but without all the movement) if you look at something that advertises as "European Oak". Or a visual with a lime finish. The knots and the "character" of the plank (colour variations, heavy mineral streaks) are offering a strong visual. If you want "more uniform" then you will have to look at something that is missing all of the above.