Before the move, purchase a good supply of felt. You can buy the heavy duty sheets in about 4" x 4" and cut to fit. As you unload each piece, go ahead and attach to the bottom of each piece. Insist that the movers give you time to do this! For large items such as buffets, entertainment centers, dressers, and chests, check out the bottoms. If the piece has round or square legs, cut to fit. Many of your large pieces may have L-shaped bases. Cut rectangular strips to place on the bottom. Example - my dresser has L-shaped bases. I put two strips about 3" long per each base Remember each surface area that touches the floor does not have to be completely covered. The felt is thick enough to hold the entire piece up off the floor. You can buy pre-cut round pads that work great for bar stools, chair legs, etc. Make sure you get the thick stuff, not the thin green stuff. I get mine at Walmart and Lowes. Not only will this protect your floor, but will allow for ease in sliding heavy pieces for furniture rearranging, moving out to clean and paint. I can slide my heavy sleigh bed away from the wall by myself because it has felt pads on the bottom. Another tip - If the movers don't give you time to install the pads before unloading, you can use pot holders, thick folded dish towels, etc to place the legs on to allow you to slide your furniture into place. You can have someone lift up the edges while you adhere the pads to the bases or legs. Do it right the first time! You will not have to replace for many years on those items that remain pretty much stationary. I do replace the pads on the bottom of my barstools about once a year as they tend to pick up grit, etc which can damage your floors.

One-quarter-inch thick hardwood plywood can be spread out for sliding heavy appliances to cabinet adjacency, and then front-to-back strips of the plywood aligned with the "feet" of the appliance can be used for final sliding into place. Then, either jack up one side after another and remove the strips, or keep them in place if the floor is soft (cherry, pine, etc.). For supporting significant weight on small feet over soft wood, the hardwood plywood can be augmented by stainless steel or aluminum strips to help spread the weight over more of the hardwood plywood and hence more of the underlying soft flooring. My 48-inch SZ refrigerator/freezer uses that approach over a cherry floor. This does raise the appliance slightly, so that may be a factor in deciding whether to keep the strips in place after appliance placement.

We have bamboo flooring throughout our small house, other than laundry and bathroom. In a small house, you really have to consider such things as the dogs' water bowl and kitty litter. Our Great Pyrenees can never drink without splattering water everywhere (our Maltese not so much...), so we put the food, water and kitty litter in the bathroom. Unconventional, but it works and keeps us on our toes with cleanup. Living on a farm, the bigger issue is mud tracked in by people and dogs. We have coir matts both outside and inside front and patio doors, and the dogs get their feet cleaned before coming in. We use Bona as a cleaner, but I have found that it tends to leave streaks, so after cleaning I go over once with vinegar, which does the trick.

Browns occur in a wide range of shades from warm to cool and they need to complement each other or you might end up with a result that makes you vaguely dissatisfied with the overall effect. @raee_gw zone 5b-6a Ohio "Vaguely Dissatisfied" is spot on. I must have tried a forest's worth of flooring samples against my "golden" walnut cabinets and nothing looks right. Re your red oak, I wonder if there is a significant hue difference (or some other color difference) between red oak harvested 80 years ago versus modern day red oak. Because all the newish red oak floors I see seem to lean pink or red when unstained. @Patricia Colwell, I also LOVE natural walnut floors. I keep pondering that species as a way to distract from our "golden" walnut cabs, but DH prefers lighter over darker flooring. (Plus, the $$.) @lucky998877, thanks. Your floors sound lovely--and made to last! Good luck with your choice! Chandler, sorry for the hijack. Hope everything worked out great! :)