Thank you. That link was useful and after additional searching, I managed to find a nice e-how link on snapping chalk lines for determining if walls are straight. http://www.ehow.com/how_6187307_install-wood-planks-straight.html

Vinyl is only appropriate for under 40th percentile homes. Even "luxury'' vinyl tile. Homes mid grade and up should have tile, or wood. Your home sounds like it would be devalued by vinyl as a choice, but that you would enjoy it, and pay the deduction to take the hit. Wood is not ''too expensive''. You perhaps are experiencing sticker shock on products. A good vinyl will be as expensive as wood. Wood would be a more appropriate choice. Your call. Choose the more neighborhood appropriate product, or take the hit at resale.

I am in the same boat too! My 50s Ranch has original hardwood and we just did an addition so that is slab. I think the contractor wanted to save money so he said to keep the original floors and add plywood to the slab so they are all at same height of 3/4 inch. Then we can float vinyl planks. Now I am getting second thoughts that the original floors should be torn out and plywood put everywhere! Would love to hear what your doing. We also chose Republic Great California Oak for our floors.

First things first: is this an apartment style condo (multiple stories/apartments) or is this a row-house/town-house style condo? What are your CURRENT floors? These are two VERY important questions that need to be answered before you move forward with vinyl. In apartment style condos the HOA often requires NOISE REDUCTION when it comes to flooring materials. Most vinyl products do NOT allow any form of "noise abatement" underlayment (underpad) underneath them. The very few that DO allow it have limitations as to what you can use. Those "few" vinyls that allow it will allow 3mm cork or 1.2mm mass loaded vinyl underpad. And these two underlayments are RARELY enough noise abatement to satisfy HOA requirements. These undlayments are more for comfort underfoot and warmth - but not noise. My next question relates to the kitchen. Since this is a long-term home, what are your future plans for the kitchen? If you plan to updating the kitchen in the next 5 years, PLEASE do NOT renovate the flooring. Wait until you do the kitchen to add flooring. If you MUST update the flooring RIGHT NOW, at least sit down for the next two weeks and plan out your "7 year renovation plans". Make sure you put together a story board that includes colours, textures, materials, etc that the FINAL appearance will take. With this story board you will be fully equipped to move forward - one project at time. Without this story board, you will find that you will spend MORE MONEY because you will have to replace something because you failed to plan ahead. The most common problem: flooring doesn't match the kitchen renovation. Either the colour is wrong or the existing foot print of the kitchen changes and you do not have enough of the original floor to fill in the gaps. Whew! All of this out of a simple question and a single photo. Renovations are fun aren't they?