My only hesitation about cotton rugs is that most of them are lightweight and pretty slippery, in my experience. I would never use sisal or jute, btw; they can't be cleaned. Jute will disintegrate if washed. >>recommend waiting 30 days if waterbased 90 days if oil base before putting anything on top of the floor>> I do sometimes wonder if a lot of people who have issues with putting latex-backed rugs on HW flooring have allowed their on-site finish to cure long enough? We've refinished two homes with oil-based poly on resanded HW flooring. Both times, it ended up raining cats and dogs during the drying period! (seems to work better than a raindance, LOL). My DH grumbled about having to delay moving in to let the floors completely cure. 6 weeks instead of 2 was a big delay; even then I didn't put anything down for another 2 months (which would get me just past the 90-day mark in NHF&S's post). But our last poly coating was 26 yrs ago and the flooring is still in great shape. We use a lot of rugs & pads, too. I always use the "safe for HW flooring" cushioning under our rugs and recently (Dec 2015) moved one rug/foam cushioning which had been in place for 15 yrs, but no issues at all with the foam staining, sticking, or anything else. No problems with the previous home either in 17 yrs, although I did learn fast about the 'don't use rubber-back' warning. I don't dispute those owners who have had issues - the photos they've posted show there is a definite problem. But it makes it very difficult to pin down why they've had problems and we never have, despite four decades of poly'ed HW flooring (oak and alder) and a wide variety of rugs/backing/rug pads. I'd love to know what it is that **doesn't** work, so in my next home I'll be sure not to do anything wrong! If we ever need HW flooring again it will definitely be done by pros, so figuring this out is an issue I keep checking on.

My former boss built quite an upscale home (for this area, anyway) with hand scraped very dark wood floors in the kitchen. You could see every. tiny. speck. and. footprint. When I was there during a reception or tea party that his wife was fond of having, I thought the floor always looked soooo dirty. All that food and all those people definitely left their marks on the floor.

You need to ask for a separate quote for each line item. Here's some charges you may not have thought of: 1. Floor material by the sf (plus 10% extra) (I'd check the calculations, also). 2. Transition strips or other specialized molding (stairs?); sometimes has to be stained to match, depending on the product line. 3. Baseboard (you gonna keep what you have or choose something new while you have the chance?) 4. Glue (it's very expensive, and must be the exact type recommended by the manufacturer of the wood floors. Read your specs carefully and inspect the glue product when they bring it. 5. Demo of old flooring. Where I live, that was, as I recall, $2/sf for wood/tile demo and $1/sf for carpet demo. And disposal--better make sure about that. 6. Costs to move your furniture. Make a plan for that. 7. Lastly, floor prep. You won't get an estimate for this, because they can't see what's under your floors until you pull them up. It could be minimal, it could be....maximal.... and this "floor prep" line item was where I ran to Yelp and the BBB and the contractors' state licensing board, and anywhere else out on the internet to find out just how satisfied were all the prior customers. With whom are you entering into a contract ? I chose a local, family-owned independent retailer, in same location for 25 years, with about 100 stellar 4.5-5 star Yelp reviews. I read them all. I did my research because floor is a big-ticket item. I asked a lot of questions about which crew would be my installers, and I specified in the contract which ones would do my install. (The "A-Team" as I called them). I asked for things like: no quarter round (flooring cut more precisely so that the baseboard itself covered the gap; no transition strips in between the flooring and the 2 different types of tile that abuts the floors (this required some artistic ramping up of the wood floors (undetectable); picture frame details around the hearth. In the end, I recall install costing $5.50/sf plus glue ($2000), plus the cost of materials. Maybe it was more than that. It's been awhile. Lastly, you likely haven't thought through installing a floor on top of old floor. How will it meet up with abutting flooring? You will still have to removal all your baseboards and reinstall. That costs as I recall, maybe $1.50/linear foot (plus materials). Probably you will negate any warranty on the flooring. If you are installing near cabinets/kitchen, you won't be able to slide out your appliances.

I would do a pale neutral oak in the light tan/sand range. Not gray. Your cabinets are warm-toned, so I would stay with warm-toned floors. The neutral pale tan color will give you enough contrast with the cabinets to where it seems intentional, and will be so much easier to keep nice looking than dark floors. Edited to add: I rather like your cabinets. They look like "keepers" from an aesthetic viewpoint, to me.