Sorry to butt in again but this reminds me of something that happened to me. The part about your architect. I live in a city where there is a preponderance of ranch style homes, some older and some fairly recent. We had a demograph change and slicksters started building these chicken mansions,with giant two story doors behind giant doric columns, two and three stories high, next to the ranch style homes. I mentioned before the city council that these owner/builders were architecturally tone deaf. To make a long story short they produced a "licensed architect" that had designed most of the homes. I asked to see his card. I said "I see no license number on your card. What university did you graduate from?" He said he was not licensed here, he was licensed in Cuba. Everyone in the audience found that to be hilarious except the unlicensed owner/builders who are making millions building these chicken mansions. But not all of them were angry because alot of them couldn't understand English that well. I don't mean to infer that this is the case here, but it's just an opportunity to tell my story.

I live in the Pacific NW so plenty of rain and an occasional snow. I've had solid red oak hardwood floors with a medium stain in 2 homes here for 17 yrs and never had any problems with any discoloration from water. I have a rug in the entry and have a covered porch outside where really snowy boots are left, or I shake them off before bringing them in (most of the time, but there's likely been some occasional water from kids things--nothing major). We also have the same wood in the entry from the garage into the house and no problems there--that entry sees more traffic than the front door. I've always had an entry rug and people use it routinely (if the rug's background is dark, I've found they'll use it even if it's oriental--when I had a light one, they did like Lindac said.). If kids were running in and out a lot dropping water or snow all over, I don't think I'd leave big puddles or piles of snow on the floor, but that's just me. I wouldn't leave that on tile either. I'd never want a little patch of tile in the entry personally. I have tile in my laundry room and when the shedding of snow clothes happens, I send them all in there to put things in the dryer or to hang things up to dry. When we had medium/dark engineered hardwood throughout another house in a drier climate--it didn't seem to be a problem either, but again, I used entry rugs. I can't recall the brand or thickness, but know we were told they could be sanded and refinished about 3-4 times if needed. I happen to love wood floors--can you tell?

Wow. Thanks for the experiments and sharing your data/conclusions. It is very hard to find 'real world' experiments like yours.

I second Johnson Floorings opinion. Red oak in the 2.25" width is SUPER common and very cheap to source. Sure some of the bevels are going to remain...but it is possible to mask the look with a deeper colour floor. When it comes to fading, that has more to do with the WINDOWS and the amount of UV light coming through than the wood. Most wood species NATURALLY fade. That's just the nature of UV rays. There are some STAINS that are NOT STABLE in sunlight. Those unstable stains are often the LIGHT OR MIDGRADE stains like gunstock. So you get a two-fold situation. 1. The wood fades (making the stain appear lighter) 2. The Stain fades (making the wood look lighter) This means you have a faded stain (very pale) on a faded wood (very pale) and you end up with (sigh...you guessed it) a very pale floor. What I know about cork flooring (which fades to off-white in 1 year) STAINS and UV is this: The DARKER the stain the more stable it is in direct sunlight (ie. bad windows with very little UV rating to them). In other words, if you go dark - as you seem to like this idea - you will find your floors are less prone to LOOKING faded. Sure the wood underneath with get lighter but the dark stain will RETAIN most of it's colour. And do yourself a favour by using the SUPER TOUGH finishes. Work with 3 coats of FINISH (don't let them talk you into a sealant/stain and 2 coats...pay the extra and go with 3 coats) of the HIGH END 2 part water based finishes. They are SUPER TOUGH. Bona Traffic HD is the Platinum Standard for toughness. It is followed closely by Loba 2K Supra AT which is harder to find but just as tough. Don't settle for 2 coats of oil based or low-end water based stuff. Go with 3 coats of FINISH. Your household has managed (you plus the previous owner) to 'kill' a 25 year finish in just 17 years. Admittedly the first 11 years was someone else....but it has still occurred. The factor finish is NOT aluminum oxide. Which means the toughest finish was NEVER used on those floors to begin with.