I put a high quality, floating floor in my apt kitchen in NYC to help with pet wear and tear. NOT the best option. If one piece needs to be replaced (and with pet accidents it bubbles very easily), you have to undo a whole section because they are interlocked. Also, they just don't look that great, no matter what we paid. So when it came time to make the rest of the apt floor look decent, we switched to vinyl planks from Lowes. Sounds gross, but they're actually amazing looking. Our apt was built in the 1880's, (the original floor was long destroyed and removed before we got it),and I found a dark gunstock in a wider cut that almost matched our neighbor's original floor exactly. You ready for this? 98 cents a sq foot! If one gets damaged you peel it off (with some effort) and put a replacement. Echoflooring is sooo right about batch colors. Get it all at once and mix up the boxes as you lay it. We have a bunch of mixed ones for replacement and haven't used one, not one, but I know we have them. Lowes will recommend their sealer,but we didn't use it. They self stick just fine. One or two spots came up after we were first done and someone on line told us to use a hairdryer to reheat it and lay a book on top overnight. Worked like a dream. Our apt in NY is 800 sq ft and our current tenant is a photographer with two rescue cats and she loves the floor. Even with her keen eye, we had to tell her they were vinyl and how to replace it if she had a pet accident. She was blown away! I will try to post a picture of our NY apt floor for you. To be fair to our tenant the photographer, I took the horrible quality pics w my cell, not her! LOL! Choose wisely for your space and go with your fave, not what everyone says you should do, incl me. And pls do remember the color batch issue echoflooring brought up. Good luck :) Here is a link that might be useful: NYC vinyl plank floor

if you want square edge you can get it from Bruce, Mohawk and many other mfctrs. They may not have the samples but the lines all make square edge products. The reason for micro bevels are that no floor is perfectly flat and without sanding the floor you will have instances of overwood which if your picky you will notice with a square edge product. With micro bevels this helps avoid the situation as it camaflouges the height variations. Other reason is simply design. With a bevel each strip or plank is accented and it is a different look. Any difference in maintenance would be extremely negligible.

"...âÂÂ100% factâ no floor company finishes the sides of a beveled edge product.... " I can't resist here...I have to comment...you are in for a battle with the manufacturer, the distributor and the company that sold you the product. However, a stained and finished flooring product that when installed reveals unstained areas of each unit is unacceptable. I would find a few units with missing stain on edges, but not any more than about a half dozen units in the typical job. I would consider what you have there as a manufacturing defect or a flaw in the process that creates the product. A quick solution, were you to accept the product, would be to stain the offending blonde edges with an appropriate stain or coloring agent. However, I don't see why that would be your responsibility to do or to pay to have it done. However, $10 worth of coloring media and about an hour or two of labor to skillfully apply...and it'd be done and you could get back to installing and using the floor. Has the manufacturer suggested that yet? Staining the edges of a few units and correcting other minor defects with colored wood filler or coloring media is typical with any wood floor installation and is part of the job. However, your situation goes beyond the scope of correcting an occasional unit.

We are wondering the same thing. Those groove make it look unfinished to us. I guess I just want a site-finished floor. But we have also hears how much more durable the prefinished are. we have 2 corgis, hence the name, "corgi_mom" and one loves to lick the floor! That sounds not so great for either kind of wood. We are even considering wood-look vinyl, although the idea scares me. I don't want to make a horrible mistake. Which could be the case either way... Oh, well.