I'm sorry, I didn't see that, yeah polystyrene is the foam i was talking about. It looks like you already have insulation. Capillary action is dragging water right under that whole floor. That looks like a damp corner outside where you have brick. So dumb I missed the water creeping right under your door threshold. Either you have a bad door pan or the door pan has no place to drain to. Either water is coming down the outside wall and going under the door, or water is pooling up in the brick patio and working it's way in. The solution to fix the patio surface is similar to a shower basin. If the flashing is all good around the door, you might need a little catch basin in the patio outside the door to shed water away from the door.

If you can't lace together, do the threshold at 90 degrees (maybe 2 strips). That's what we did (but we left the 1920s original wood floors, did the 90 degree 2 strips of new wood, then the adjoining room (after ripping out tile) got new wood - same species and 4" thickness as original.) Picture: 1920s wood top; threshold and lower wood new. Was not poly'ed yet when picture taken. I did not have high end or particularly skilled wood installers, and they managed a pretty good job. Its not perfect but I like that the rooms are separated: you can refinish just the room that gets water damage, for example. (Our original wood doesn't have alot of sandings left, so this is a big benefit for us.) Hardwood flooring is expensive - I suspect it will be cheaper for you to find a better/more skilled installed (even if labor costs more) who can lace in or do what we did. I.e., not replace your existing wood.

I hate shoe molding. It always looks dirty. I thought it was just my cleaning abilities! LOL. It looks like your house was NOT built straight!! I think it is just the floor that makes the walls look like they aren't square. The gaps shown in photo #1 aren't consistent along the board. One end might have an acceptable gap and the other end looks like the photo. Once you get to the end of the room with a couple of skewed boards it looks like photo #3. If it were a smaller room instead of the open floor plan, it might not look so bad in that corner. robin069 may have a point. But the flooring installers could have simply cut a triangular piece that would fit flush to the wall. Sounds like a triangular piece might be the "fix" for now. We are so far over schedule that if we don't convert our construction loan we will get hit with extra fees. I might not gain as much fighting over this as I'll lose in bank fees for not wrapping it up ASAP. It kills me to say this, but maybe I'll have to live with it for now and redo the floors ourselves at a later date. I've installed vinyl and tile flooring as a DIY project in previous houses. It took FOREVER because I wanted it right, but they looked good. I'm guessing if I can do vinyl and tile as a DIY, I can do wood floors.

Is there any way to measure the temperature at the 'wood-subfloor' interface? Most floor products do NOT allow anything warmer than 85F at the subfloor-floor interface (the temperature found between the two products). The 60 F INSIDE temperature is quite low. It is just on the very edge of "indoor living temperature". Most warranties (paint, carpet, hardwood, baseboards, doors, drywall, cabinets, etc) must have consistent indoor living conditions. The building industry has a definition of indoor living conditions (which are to be maintained throughout the life of the home...regardless if someone is home or not). Relative Humidity: 35% - 65% Temperature: 55F - 85F Your indoor air temperature is only 15 Celsius. That is VERY cool. The lower temperatures have a harder time 'keeping' moisture in the air. That's why you find dew on the grass during the chill of a spring morning. The grass is colder than the air. And the air is already quite chilly. The air has a hard time 'holding on' to the water vapour. The cooler blade of grass is JUST ENOUGH to cause a water droplet to form - pulling the water from the air and onto the earth. As the air warms up, the vapour is HAPPILY stuck in the air. That's why you have hot-sultry areas (like NYC in the summer time) and you have cold DRY areas (like Mongolia in winter). It's how the laws of physics work. I would tip up the heating a snick and OPEN THE WINDOWS to pump up the humidity. I would bet the closer you get to 50% RH and 70 F (20 C) the better your floors will look. Somehow you need to get the humidity and the temperature up AT THE SAME TIME.