either you want real wood, or you want fake. because fake does not look like the real stuff. And engineered wood is real wood. Often it's stronger than a solid wood plank. look at the Janka hardness test and choose accordingly. One of the hardest is a Fossilized Bamboo. it's up above 3500 on the scale. (oak is about 1300 or so) But remember, 120 year old homes still have the original wood flooring in them. So to say that a wood floor can't stand up to a toddler, a small dog and a messy cook is silly. look into a solid white oak, stained on site. see how that price compares w/an engineered hardwood. How about a wide plank French Oak? You needn't have to get hand scraped. I would never do 1500 sq ft of the vinyl plank. oh heck no. And, if you want the really good, long lasting LVP, it's about the same price as a good hardwood. or find a quality wood-look tile oh, and the last place I'd buy any of those products is at a big box store. They don't exactly deal in the best quality items. Go to an actual flooring place where that's all they specialize in dealing. they more choices, better quality, and better pricing.

Traditionally the asbestos tiles will be removed by cutting out the subfloor from underneath then at the same time. The fastest way is to cut the kitchen floor into 3ft x 3ft squares (or whatever size squares the remediation company likes to work with) and then the vinyl is left ATTACHED to the subfloor....the whole thing comes up. What that does is DROP the 'level' of the subfloor so that it sits LOWER than the hardwood. Right....now we have 'space' to get a newer, thicker floor in so that we can MAINTAIN the floor height level. This is a COMPLETE gut! It would be VERY sad to leave the asbestos in place which then SERIOUSLY limits your flooring choices. As in...your down to some very unwanted options... How much did the remediation quote come out to be? What is the TOTAL PROJECTED cost of the remodel? I would HATE for you to think, in 5 years time, "I WISH we had just done the floors at the time! Why didn't we do it??? It was only $5K more!" (I'm assuming $5,000...it's just for arguments sake).

see if SJ McCarthy can come in and comment. She is the flooring guru and I believe she is in Can. look her up, send her a message, and have give her a link to this dilemma. She'll pop over. I'm sure the two 'installers' you spoke to are not flooring refinishing experts. They are probably just flooring installers. Big difference. It's not cheaper. It's costs more to tear out and buy all new. And of course that's what they told you because they're the ones taking your money! You need someone who refinishes wood floors. nothing else. Call up a wood flooring refinisher. call in 2 or 3. Talk to someone who knows what they're doing, not some random flooring guy. new flooring. $5-$10 sq ft for wood flooring, solid or engineered. (yes there is cheaper, and it's crap) now add on about $4 a sq ft to install. don't forget new baseboards. demo all of the old stuff, prob $4 a sq ft. do the math. now, match up new flooring,,$5-7 sq ft for the new wood to lace in, few more bucks for labor, plus a few thousand to completely sand and stain everything at once. (I don't know what your sq footage is) it's cheaper to leave what's there, and pay to have it matched and redone. And, you get to keep your original floors and have them look brand new.

@User I applaud your steadfastness in the face of the repeated, petty, arrogant, argumentative comments posted here. People ignore the questions we ask and take the opportunity to put others down, that's all it amounts to. Regarding your question about the general issue of food safety, surface/air contamination, and how an open v. closed kitchen concept relates to that, I would offer the following perspective (I am a physician, practicing for 32 years now...) Science and clinical studies are very useful for some things, but there are many questions for which science and a quantitative approach are not really needed. Regarding cleanliness, there are huge subjective components to this...everyone has a different idea of what clean means, and has a different level of comfort. It isn't really important if some clinical study measures bacterial levels as "safe" if you aren't comfortable in that environment. My feeling as a physician is that worries about food safety, bacterial and viral illnesses, and so forth are in general a bit over-emphasized today. I think we are healthier when we are exposed to more pathogens, not shielded from them. Our immune systems "like" the challenge of defending us, and they get better, to a point, the more they are challenged. Regarding the specific question of design, my feeling would be that a closed kitchen design would, most likely, be a potentially cleaner environment for reasons you mention: less cross traffic, less chance of people dropping dirty shoes or handbags or whatever in the kitchen while passing to other locations. Ventilation could be inferior in a closed design, but this is easy to mitigate. Now, whether the "dirtier" open design has any clinically significant or important effects on the real world life we live in our open kitchen, I don't know. I think people should design spaces in a way that makes them feel happy and joyful. When choosing between whether to follow joy or shield against fear, I always try to follow joy. Ok, I'm finished philosophizing for the day.