I have real oak hardwood in my kitchen, and three years ago I installed engineered, handscraped hardwood by Appalachian Hardwoods in my bedroom. The engineered hardwood is superb. It didn't even scratch when we had heavy, sold bedroom furniture installed. These pieces require four people to move, and at one point it was dropped on the floor: no scratches, no dents. We now have felt pads on all the furniture for more protection, but the engineered wood has held up well. It's also easy to clean. It was more expensive than some hardwoods: $8.00 per square foot! Since our home was built to look like an old Louisiana antebellum home, I wanted floors that looked old and had character. The handscraped engineered floors fit the bill, especially when compared to the price of real, reclaimed wood from old homes or barns! Now I'm replacing all the flooring in my house with the same engineered wood. I'm even removing the oak plank in the kitchen. It has not held up over the years. The finish is gone in some spots, probably from wear and the use of things like vinegar, grease, etc. Some things really seem to eat away at the finished oak regardless of how quickly you remove a spill. It also has some dings from me dropping heavy cast-iron cookware. So, I can only speak from my experience, but so far the engineered hardwood seems to be the better choice for my home. Plus, it was faster to install. If I had done raw hardwood, the contractor said he would lay the wood in the house for a week to let it "cure" before finishing it. I live in a high-humidity area (NC). I'm impatient and didn't want to wait.

The Amount of times a standard 3/4" solid hardwood floor can be sanded without needing patch work, or until you sand down to the tongue in the majority of the floor is comepletely dependant on Who you have sanding you're floor, and other factors like how flat the subfloor was when the install took place and along with how flat it has stayed over the course of time. You can find a DIY who has no experience sanding a new floor, and because of their inexperience, can shorten the life of the floor to maybe 2 sandings. Then you can find the hacks who don't even take into consideration how much wood is being removed, and will slap on a 16grit belt and grind away. and you might get 3 sandings. Then you find the professional, who knows what their doing, and you can probably get 5 sandings of course other factors can tie into the amount of wood needed to be removed during a sanding, so theres no set amount of "meat" that gets removed. Standard 3/4" solid HW generally has roughly 3/8" of meat before you start seeing the tongue. and to add onto what Livewireoak had mentioned, if you take care of the floor, get routine buff n coats done, and refrain from changing a stain color from dark to light then in theory a new hardwood floor installed today, should outlast my great great grandkids.

Thanks everyone. They used a Zinsser Sealer Shellac/water, Poloplaz Supreme Polyurethane - 2 coats. The flooring had flaws from sanding and they resanded and repeated the process. The flooring contractor was already unhappy that I had him redo the floors because of the significant dents and waves from the uneven sanding in two rooms. All of the floors had a rough texture after he was done the first time and you could see and feel the rough grain and in some spots felt like the finish was almost bare. His response to me was that I could put rugs to cover it the uneven sanding. No deal! So with an attitude, he said he would resand the two rooms that were sanded unevenly and screen and recoat the other rooms to help with the rough grain. He did all that. The grain no longer feels rough but does not look smooth like they did before they were refinished. He never admitted to me that he thought there was a problem but did admit to my GC that the work was not done correctly by his crew. During this process we were out another 7 days in a hotel (getting expensive here). So, I decided when we came back for the walk through, unless there significant flaws I was just going to love everything and move forward. I didn't see the bubbles until a few hours after the very brief walk-through. I cannot see living with those as they are significant through out the two rooms they resanded. I do not see them in the other rooms where there was just screen and coat. The reason for refinishing the floors is because of a flood we had in the kitchen and a small portion of two other rooms requiring a small portion of each those rooms to have some flooring replaced. At the same time we decided to do a full kitchen remodel as we had plans to do this within the next five years so thought it would be prudent to move up our plans. The GC is having him come back Monday to look at the bubbles. Now, I have to say, this flooring contractor was by far the most expensive bid and has had a very good reputation in the community for over 28 years (why we selected him over cheaper bids).

... and the saga continues. We didn't think it could get much worse, but alas, it did. If anyone is interested in how the story ends: Because we are living there (with our cat) he said that would go room by room and move furniture. We asked for a heads up on which rooms so we could move most of it and figure out where to hide our cat. He said he would start with the two bedrooms. One day he focused on the spare room and said he wanted us to let him know what we thought so he knew how to proceed with the others. Fair enough. We said there were buffer swirl scratches and a bunch of poly issues (puddles, lines, and a big globby mess). So he came yesterday and decided to focus on the master bedroom. He said he would redo the spare room's poly globs "later" but that the scratches would "take too much time." I said I would overlook the scratches if he tried not to do them on the rest of the floor. We left to take some calls at a coffee shop around 1pm. When we returned around 3pm we couldn't get into the apartment because he had decided to sand the whole place before finishing a room! We are confused and frustrated because we could have moved our stuff properly and wanted to be sure he could do a good job before taking more of our floor. We have to camp out at a restaurant with our laptops for the next three hours and try to do work. When we return before 6pm, he is gone for the day. We are careful not to touch the floor, but notice dozens of places with debris under the poly, long hairs under the poly, a big filler smear right in front of the door and -- get this -- an outline of our bed frame in poly because he never took it out! We are fuming and unable to reach the contractor. We finally text the floor guy that we are not comfortable proceeding and that he can pick up his stuff before we leave for work. He says it is not done, but extra poly isn't going to fix those issues and we can't risk him doing this to the rest of the floor. Now we're left with a half-finished floor and will NOT be letting that man into our apartment again. If anyone has any floor specialist recommendations in NYC, I'm all ears :-) P.S. Not looking for perfection.. just a good looking floor.