Yes, I have had three experiences with vinyl plank flooring, as follows: My father installed Konecto in his addition- a woodworking shop, bathroom workout room (with treadmill) and wine cellar (including stairs). The floor has been in for over two years and looks fantastic. Any scratches disappear with the same vinyl spray you use on your car's dashboard. I installed Konecto in the bathroom of my home that has now become a rental. The floor was so uneven that the tile installed, most likely just prior to sale, cracked and the grout fell out within a week of my moving in. Wet towels and puddles of water have sat on the year-old vinyl plank, with no problems. My father owns a working farm that he rents; Allure was installed in the kitchen and held up to the mud-and-gravel-encrusted boots that slog through the kitchen. It has been in for almost a year and looks great. These experiences drew me to vinyl plank flooring in the house I "inherited" when I got married; however, I still researched other options such as hardwoods and laminates. While it is a personal choice, I have found the following in my particular case: The house, in its present condition, needs so much work that we are upside down already (purchased from a family member, you know how it goes...) and have major expenses such as plumbing, electric, flooring and a kitchen- the current kitchen is gutted. For my neighborhood, I will never recoup the costs, even at bargain-basement prices. This is something all remodelers should consider- are you creating a $300,000 home in a $150,000 neighborhood? Also, with the way that folks love to remodel these days and put their own stamp on their homes, who is to say that the next owners won't cover your beautiful hardwoods with carpet? Finally, practicality: we have 2 dogs and 3 cats and plan for children soon. In our shotgun house we don't want to break up the visual aesthetic of openness by having different types of flooring in the living room, dining room, kitchen and bath, we wanted a unified, seamless look For water resistance, vinyl is the way to go. Not to mention the logistics of installation- in our situation the thickness of the vinyl works best with our current flooring/trim combination. If my situation were different, I might choose a different floor, but when looking at the whole picture, vinyl seemed the way to go for us! We also plan on staying here for some time, so resale is less of a concern, but it is in our minds (though I have never bought a house I didn't change, so your potential buyer might too!). If you would like pictures of the three aforementioned vinyl plank "experiences" I can ask family members/tenants to send some. Also, check out your local commercial joints. For example, my grocery store has vinyl plank floors that look great after 5 years of squeaky, wobbly cart wheels running over them. Hope this helps and good luck with your remodel!!

Redroze, I'm just getting back online and seeing your questions, so I'll try to answer what I can. My new floor in the LR/DR was not pre-finished, it was all site-finished. I did put a pre-finished floor down in my office (no pics, sorry) because I work from home and didn't have time to be without my office for the week it would have taken to have floor sanded etc. The pre-finished does have a different feel to it than the site-finished. I wouldn't say it's grooved, just a more defined difference in between the individual planks. The office doesn't adjoin any other room, except the tiled hallway, so I didn't worry so much about the wood being different there. I see from your pictures what you mean about running the planks the same way and wanting to be sure things don't look odd. One idea might be to take up some of your FR planks, like the first 12 or so, and then put them back down interwoven with the new planks. That way there's not a clear line in between the 2 rooms, but rather a more gradual blending. Here's another couple of pictures, this time of my family room. The first one is a before shot of the hardwood floor + a rug-like carpet. The floor created a frame around the carpet. I had the carpet taken up and new hardwood put in where the carpet originally was, then everything sanded and refinished. You absolutely can't tell where the old wood was vs where the new started. In this case, the new is random width because it opens directly to the kitchen (as opposed to the LR/DR which is all the same width). So, one house, all new site-finished floors in the LR & DR, all new pre-finished floor in the office, original/refinished in the kitchen, and half&half refinished + original in the family room. Boy did we have dust! Hope this helps! New:

Do you live in a home with a basement of any kind? If you do than it's not a good idea to change directions. Rule of thumb is to go the direction opposite of the joice supporting the subfloor. That said, we too laid our own floors and we installed all of the boards in one direction throughout the first floor not only because we have a basement, but because to us, it looks more cohesive. A couple more tips some people overlook: 1. Make sure your subfloor is straight and level 2. Allow the wood to sit with the boxes open for a couple of weeks before installing it. This allows the wood to acclimate it to the humidity levels in your home. 3. Always leave a 3/4 inch gap at each wall so the floor has room to breath. If you live in an area that has higher humidity levels, you may want to use thin spacers inbetween the boards as well. This will help offer some extra breathing space during those humid summer months. Oh and one last thing, Get out the advil because it can be hard on the back. Kudo's to the installers, who we learned personally, actually earn every dime they charge.

You can still keep those hardwoods, and have them look very nice by running the boards the opposite direction instead of on a diagonal. I know a wood floor is much easier on my knees/back/feet than tile. You can see the wood floors running opposite in this picture, with the darker band of wood in-between toward the back of the floors: Mixing a band of dark cherry between your oak wood floors would make the transition for you, if you wanted to keep the wood floors. (Since your cabinets are cherry, it makes sense to keep the hardwoods relating to each other.) I was a little concerned about doing this in my kitchen in the beginning, but think it worked out and looks intentional from a design standpoint. There's a lot of wood in my kitchen, so that was a big consideration for me. Knowing the chairs and some of my dining room pieces were walnut, helped me make the transition between the kitchen (cherry) and the dining room (walnut). You know, contractors/builders often have good ideas, but they're not designers. Tying it all together takes a certain amount of finesse, which is often times hard to achieve. I hope this helps mrpandy; it's just an option to consider amongst all the opinions, while you figure it out. Good luck with your remodel!