Count me in for the engineered wood plank floors too. I have Robbins Passeggiata 3 1/4" ash flooring, and I absolutely love it. I live in NH - arid winters and malarial summers, no AC and forced-hot-water heat so the moisture levels swing drastically). Others I knew with solid hardwood floors got gaps every winter and that just drives me NUTS because the cracks between the boards can collect dirt and expose unfinished wood where moisture can infiltrate and spoil the finish. People are very stubborn here about "solid wood has done us fine for 300 years, it'll be fine for another 300!" so I had to fight to get engineered instead of site-finished solid that is the standard here. Site finishing was not an option because we couldn't move out for installation! Besides, I do believe that the factory finishes are more durable than site-applied finishes, since they have the benefit of controlled conditions, kiln curing, etc. (We bought an extra bundle because we knew we'd have to patch the spot by the dog's bed since his nails grow at turbo speed and the floor's pretty gouged.) I adored the look of the extra wide planks, especially the distressed and handscraped types in 7"-plus widths, but they were just SO expensive! I paid $9/sf installed for my Robbins flooring while many of the wide-plank floors I looked at ran much more than that just for the materials for a good quality product. *choke* Bruce has some relatively-inexpensive 5-7" plank floors at around $6-7/sf uninstalled but I'm just not knocked out by their finish quality, the planks were either square-edge (sock-catchers if your floors are not perfectly flat) or had a deeper bevel than I liked, and their veneer layer is thinner than Robbins. Robbins warrants for three full refinishings! As of early 2005 they had the thickest veneer layer in the industry, a full third of the board's thickness. I like their extremely small microbevel as well because it doesn't catch dirt, it sweeps out fine and you don't catch your socks (or worse chip the floorboards where there's raised bits due to subfloor imperfection). I'm not one for strip floors, I find them too busy. Besides, I am an old-house nut, and old New England houses had wide-plank floors, not these stingy little strips! I visited one early-1800s house on the town's historical society house tour where the narrowest board on the floor was 12", many were 16" and even 20", all rock-hard pine. Had I had gobs of greenbacks and a house that could carry it, I'd have gone for wide planks in reclaimed wood. *swoon*

The only worse flavor of ice cream that I can think of besides butter pecan is salted caramel - salt does not belong in ice cream or caramel. This is one of the reasons that I make caramel and ice cream myself - so that I can leave out ALL salt. Butter pecan is extremely popular in Texas, where I grew up, and I love pecans, but not on ice cream, and butter with ice cream makes me gag - although not as badly as salt. My favorite flavor of ice cream is mamey, but I also love coconut, cherimoya and guanabana ice cream, and fortunately, I grow cherimoya here, but not guanabana. I have white sapote fruit in my yard ripening now, and I will have to see how they go with ice cream. In general, I prefer fruit flavored ice cream, but the flavors I make most often are French vanilla, chocolate hazelnut, and strawberry - none of which have any salt in them. I never buy ice cream because I have a Whynter ice cream machine that has a built-in compressor so that I do not have to freeze a bowl to make it, and I can make one batch right after another. I do this only for parties, however. The one ice cream I would buy (but don't anymore because I like it too much) is Trader Joe's Coffee Bean Blast. Typically, if I want a coffee flavor in ice cream, I add coffee liqueur to vanilla ice cream after I make it. I use a lot of different liqueurs when making ice cream, including Amaretto, Frangelico, Nocello, St. George Nola, Godiva chocolate, etc. I also add these liqueurs to ice cream after it has been made. My brother's favorite is pistachio, and I had to teach him how to pronounce it correctly in Italian when we were in Italy. BTW, my sister loves butter pecan ice cream, but she and I have totally different tastes in food. She loves mac and cheese, and that also makes me gag.

Also, kitchen cabinets: tradition raised panel or shaker?

Have her go to a specialty flooring store that carries all kinds of flooring. They should know the questions to ask to narrow down and recommend a flooring she will love that is right for her specific situation and application. It might cost more than the big box stores (and it might not) but paying a little more for the knowledge and experience to help ensure she is very pleased with the result is worth it IMO.