If you see wear on your wood floor after two years, it's time to recoat it, not refinish it. You only get so many resandings. As your kids grow they should get a little more responsible and be easier on the floor. You should evaluate why you have so much wear so you can extend time between recoating. Sand is often the culprit. When I look at floors with wear issues I run my hand across the floor to see if it's clean. Do you have dogs that come in the house after laying in dirt? Do you have mats inside and outside each entry door? How often do you vacuum to remove sand? What do you clean the floor with? Installing new hand scraped factory finished floor would be expensive and would only buy you a little extra time. Once it's scuffed and scratched you'll have to recoat it. Then you'll be in the same boat you're in now. You say you got Swedish finish. Is this Swedish finish as in acid curing urethane, or as in waterborne urethane? If you got waterborne urethane (and you've been maintaining your floor correctly) you could have the floor recoated with a more durable finish like oil-modified polyurethane. You could possibly do one room as a test first. Refinishing your existing floor and staining it dark will not lessen the appearance of dings and dents. For people in your situation I usually recommend they soldier through, maintain their existing floor until the kids get to a certain age (like college age) then have the floors done the way YOU want them.

I had never heard of Flor before your message. It's an interesting idea but like you I have no idea how well the installation method works or how the carpeting holds up. Seems a little expensive too, starting at $33 per yard and going up to $100 with most of it in $50-$60 range.

We demolished a +15 y/o kitchen (IKEA) with Blum hardware in my parents' house and everything including the hardware was in perfect working condition. My own kitchen is over 7 years old and no problem with the Blum hardware. Honestly this is such a quality product that I think that any problem may come from a bad installation and/or some debris/dust trapped in the glides. Another possibility may be that the wood/plywood/particle board bottom of your drawer is warped because some moisture got there, this would impede the glides to work properly. Blum states that their glides are rated for 100,000 opening/closing cycles. This post was edited by barthelemy on Mon, Jun 10, 13 at 16:55

I also have a Rohl Allia fireclay sink and have had it since February of 2005, so almost 9 years! I wish I had heard of a sink grid when our sink was new, because the bottom of our sink is pretty scratched and stained from the heavy use it has seen over the years. My husband and I both cook and bake a LOT, and use a lot of cast iron, though I don't necessarily think the cast iron has been the issue. I think it's just the general wear of lots of pots and pans being cleaned in the sink. I absolutely love the size of the sink, but am disappointed at how grey and scratched the bottom is. It just looks like the shiny finish has worn off and now the bottom is porous and stains very easily. I have only used sponges and microfiber clothes to clean it, occasionally giving it a good scrub with vinegar and baking soda which I then rinse off thoroughly. I've been thinking about it recently and wondering how other sinks have fared as we're thinking about re-doing some parts of the kitchen (cabinets), but I like the counter tops and size and placement of the sink so I'm torn as to whether or not to keep it in spite of the worn look of the bottom. If it weren't so scratched up it would be a no-brainer as it is an awesome sink other than the wear/staining. I wanted to post this for anyone else thinking of installing this type of sink. Maybe a grid would have prevented the heavy wear, but it's too late for my sink. I am wondering if there is any way to "refinish" an installed fireclay sink... If anyone has done so or has any information I would love to hear about it!