If you're doing floor installation yourself and you're laying unfinished wood or tiles, there's a lot less cutting and piecing and it's faster if you can just lay and lay and lay without interference. And you can topfinish the room cleanly all the way to the walls, again without touchy little areas that need awkward kneeling and close vision and special attention. Also, you can more easily reconfigure the kitchen later--remove a portion of cabs and there's still an intact floor there. Hint from the sadder but wiser: If you're doing red oak and if you're sorting pieces beforehand so that you can isolate or omit the odd colored and wild grain ones and feature the calm ones in the major areas [I yanked out what I termed "clown" pieces to use up in the closet and under the cabs] be sure you have measured off the projected cab positions ten times over before you start. DH made a measuring error--didn't read the cab layout properly and figure how it related to the blueprint. I have three courses of clowns right in a prominent place and, naturally, some of the nicest boards are under the peninsula. It wasn't until the cabs were installed that I realized how my strategy had backfired. New Gel Mat covers it.

We had the oak flooring installed first (unfinished) and it was covered with a cardboard product (Ram Board) throughout the rest of the process. The cabinets, granite and appliances have been installed and all of the painting has been done. The GC has protected the cabinets after installation with panels of 1/2 foam, taped with painters tape and the panels have been removed only when work needs to be done on the cabinets (installation of appliance and knobs). The floor is now being stained and finished. There was no sign of damage to the unfinished floors. The cardboard, though, really took a beating and I'm glad that the floors were protected during construction.

The purpose of a wood conditioner is to fill in some of the deeper areas of the grain in wood so that when you stain it, those deep grain areas will not come out as blotchy. If you are just going to clear coat the wood and like it the way it is, there is no reason to use a conditioner. There is also no reason to stain the wood if you like it the way it is. You will want to sand it lightly to remove fingerprints and other dirt before clear coating though. Two coats is good....three is better. The first coat will raise the grain and leave the wood rough, so you will have to sand lightly again before applying the second coat. Also, with all wood casements, it is important to seal completely the tops and bottoms of the sashes. I know...sometimes this means you have to take them out to do this, but that is the way to get them to last the longest.

The pre-stain conditioner is very thin varnish (shellac, whatever, just really dilute_ - the more absorbent parts of the boards soak up more of it, then you (typically) sand lightly and stain. The absorbent stuff stays slightly sealed and you get even results. " I saw on another post where a person suggested coating wood with solvent before applying stain, which made me wonder if that's all the wood conditioner is.??" That may have been me, because I do it a lot ... by letting the parts of the board that are more absorbent soak up some solvent, you minimize grabbing. BUT it has the drawback of needing to be done immediately before you apply the stain, and is not as predictable as the conditioner. It works best if you also use the "wipe on thinly" stain application method and not the "slosh it on like paint and wipe it off" method. I do it on rustic furniture because, like rustic furniture, it's fast and cheap. If I am working on something "fine", I'll use a conditioner.