This post has come to life again, so for anyone seeking it out because they have the same problem, I wanted to jump in with some personal experience. After the oak floors in our new-construction house began cupping and buckling (the builder had rushed the build, since he was trying to finish a spec house on the same deadline, but had since decamped to another state due to a sex scandal), we saved for a few years and replaced it with engineered cherry flooring. This probably would have been about the same time as the OP's post, which as of this comment is 13 years old; the manufacturer was a Swedish company called Kährs, and since our local distributor had just started carrying it, there were no red flags in terms of bad reviews or negative customer feedback. That cherry floor looked great--for about ten minutes. EVERYTHING scuffed and scratched it. A puppy just innocently living its life? Scratches galore. Someone dropping anything heavier or sharper than a pillow? A guaranteed ding. A kid running a toy car over it? A tell-tale track of scuffs. Anyone wearing shoes (and I'm not talking stilettos)? Scuffs, scratches, and dents. It was ridiculous, like, we couldn't believe how quickly and easily the floor accumulated damage. Whatever finish was on that cherry, it did absolutely NOTHING to protect against ordinary wear and tear. We tried everything to clean, protect, and rehabilitate that floor. Shoes, even slippers, became forbidden in the house. We had a network of rugs from one end of the house to the next. Every chair not only sat on a rug, it had felt floor protectors and ugly wool socks on its feet. We swiffered like mad. For ten years, all the measures we took were futile, and just ended up causing us added aggravation and frustration. Finally we gave up, realized we were going to have to bite the bullet and install our THIRD hardwood floor in fifteen years, and replaced every square foot of the cherry. This time, we went for a harder wood (hickory), though the major problem with the Kährs had obviously been the finish. We put in a fairly pricey but beautiful hand-scraped wide-plank floor (Baroque Flooring Bavarian XL) and it was FABULOUS--everything the Kährs wasn't. It was gorgeous, it was tough as nails (pets were no problem!), and it was easy to clean. The moral of this story: Sometimes there's just no way around a bad product, except to replace it. The sooner you can afford to do it, the happier you'll be.

Hi Kim, I've had Hayes Oak installed for 3 years now and I still love it. I get lots of compliments and as other commenters have mentioned, it pulls both warm and cool, depending on the amount of lighting in the room as well as paint and time of day but it always looks great. I'm also pleased that it doesn't have any yellow tones to it. Also love the wide plank look.

We had planned to install the Coretec Grande Lotte Oak; however have ultimately chosen another color. I have approx 1,500 sq ft available for sale -- willing to offer deeply discounted pricing. We are located in WI but can ship. Pls contact me at jwire@tds.net if interested.

@Jennifer Moskopf - Hi Jennifer, sorry the flooring is not available anymore. Someone just bought it from me about a week ago. We really love our floors. It looks so good and also feels good. We put it on top of our concrete basement floor. Our contractor did ask us to put a mositure barrier in between the concrete and flooring. Initial few weeks there were creaking noise. But now its been more than 6 months and no noise at all. I guess it takes a few weeks to settle down.