Here is Fireclay Luna Brick, both are the same tile sitting at two different counter locations. It feels "earthy" , it is not a perfect match, but it gives enough contrast for the white cabinets and is light enough to give the space brightness that I want. My concern is the variation between each brick. Fireclays web site's pictures are sometimes misleading. I attached Fireclay's image of Luna installed as a backsplash and it shows a lot of variation from one tile to the next and then the other photo they have looks more consistant in color, confusing. Plus their color looks totally different from my sample. Do you think it will be too busy for my space? That is a good idea to order several more samples of Luna. I do plan to do this myself. My bid came in at over 1,000 for a professional. I probably won't do a herringbone if I use this size of brick.

Yikes, we just had a local Flooring Contractor begin our flooring project. We're replacing the carpet that was original to the home, and ripping out the tile in several areas to install LVP over slab. The Contractor talked a great game, telling us about his 15 years experience and his "5 Star" reviews. When I asked about getting the old carpet glue up, he assured me he had a "power scraper" that will take the glue right up. Asked about filling nail holes from tack strips, he said he had self leveling stuff to fill those. My wife and I knowing we were getting new flooring began removing old carpet and tack strips where accessible. I filled the little craters left by pulling up the tack strip and scraped up what I could with the glue. Figuring this would save some time for the contractor. Well when it came to do the actual prep, he suddenly changed tune saying he's never fills those hole in the concrete it doesn't affect the floor at all and is a waste of time. I can see that might be true with the small holes, but pulling up the tack strips left from pretty sizable "craters." The next "red flag" was when he changed his tune on scraping the glue, he claimed the underlayment would take up any imperfections and we'd never notice once the floors are in. He said something interesting, when he said that when he's installing he asks himself if the floor will feel good under foot to the customer. Which we took to mean, if the customer never knows he didn't do a proper prep or follow manufacturer installation requirements, it's a win. When it came to following Manufacturers installation procedure, he claimed that's just CYA stuff and he does it his way. Running the underlayment perpendicular to the direction of the LVP, nah, he said you don't really need to do that, besides it takes more time. Then there's the logistic accommodations we went over with him from the get go, due to our pets. He agreed to 3 phases...until he began work then he suddenly claimed he never agreed to 3 phases, just two, then went into how he's never had a client who couldn't just put the pets in carriers and put them all in one room, then he questioned why we would adopt feral cats. That was not his job to judge our choice to rescue some cats. Oh it gets worse, with him not respecting our property. When he was taking up the tile in a bathroom, he put the toilet in our Jacuzzi shower. Did not cover the glass shower doors to protect them from "flying" mastic and tile chips. When we called him on it, the excuse was "I know what that shower is made of, and putting the toilet in there won't hurt it." We said that wasn't the point, the point was you didn't respect our property. Anyway it was excuse after excuse, argument after argument about how we trying to tell him how to do his job. Well in the end he was pretty pissed off that we expected he followed through on things we discussed and do a proper surface prep, so he quit the job. We now have a living room with basically a pallet of LVP, boxes of QuietWalk and bundles of base board. We've got another contractor coming in a few days to give us a quote on completing the project.

You will need to choose your MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the floor. All floors scratch and show wear. Even porcelain tile will look 'lived on' after a while. A house with 10 people would be considered a high-wear situation. I would look for a floor that offers commercial grade wear. Engineered hardwood offers the benefit of being able to add acoustic underlayment. Whereas most vinyl products (95-99%) do not. They will need to be installed straight down onto the subfloor. Engineered hardwood can scratch...depending on the type of finish. It can handle spills that are cleaned up within 15 minutes of so (1/4 cup fluids) but it won't handle a large puddle (the entire gallon of milk sitting on the floor) for that long. Yes, vinyl scratches. Sure. But everything will - eventually. The 20mil finish on vinyl is going to be good enough for most households. For yours I would suggest getting tougher (30mil - 40mil) finish. There are a few of these out there...but not many. Again, the noise reduction won't be very good (it is cheaper to insulate the ceiling than it is to get any meaningful noise reduction underneath vinyl. These two issues need to be reconciled to your level of acceptance. A scratched, beaten up vinyl is still a viable, sound floor. It just doesn't look nice. An engineered hardwood will scratch as well...but eventually it can be brought to the point of plank failure (cracks/splits, wear through causing raw wood to be exposed). This level of wear on an engineered hardwood is rare (especially if you work with the super tough finishes on the high-end products) but it still can happen with a family of 10. I suggest you decide which is more important - pretty vs. functional vs. quiet. It would be hard to have all 3 with a family of 10.

I am far from a floor expert, but... whether or not you can change the direction of the floor depends on your subfloor. Flooring needs to run perpendicular to joists on most floors. You can stiffen the floor from above or below to change that, but you shouldn't assume you can change direction. My opinion on your questions... 1. It depends on your subfloor. 2. I would consider different tones if you are going to change the wood species. You generally want to avoid any chance of it looking like you were trying to match and failed. 3. If you are going to match, match as much as you can. If you are not going to match, make it distinctively different. 4. Many engineered products can look good next to hardwood, but you are going to have to spend extra. So unless there is a compelling reason not to, stick with hardwood. Having said this. It is your house and my answers may not work so great for you.