If you regret anything, it will be using a the factory pre-finished boards. Site finished looks way more natural and beautiful. The seams are nearly invisible. Factory finished solid wood loses the character of solid wood. It looks just like a plastic laminate. Site finished flooring is easy to repair scratches, factory finished is impossible to repair without doing a total sand down and refinish. Then you are back to having a site-finished floor. You just spent the extra money on an unattractive finish that has to be removed to get back to the real wood. And why are you buying solid wood flooring in the first place? The point of solid wood is that you can sand it down and refinish it to its original natural beauty. If you want pre-finished floors, get a quality veneered or laminate product. If you want the ability to sand and refinish, just go with bare wood from the start. Cherry, Walnut, and Maple all make beautiful floors. They are beautiful woods. Hard maple will be the most durable.

Brutuses, Early in the day, I was all set to go with Makore or Amendoim (two days ago I was set to go with Cabrueva or Brazilian Cherry and take a chance of a dark floor) until a neighbor liked the very light Sakura and thought I should take pics and look at the pics to get an overall feel of the colors without being on top of them. Well, I would have never considered the one you chose until you sent me a sample of it and then I ordered a few more samples of it and realized the Cabrueva was the Santos Mahogany that I liked at the store a few weeks ago when I brought home the big samples that I had to return. So you choose Bruce Park Avenue Cabrueva in pics 9 and 10 that you are right has a few tones in it that compliment my credenza. The Amendoim you chose I love also which is an engineered wood (BR-111 Triangulo the big samples is of that is in the middle of the Santos Mahogany and the Tiger Wood in Picture 14). Most of the Amendoim Samples I have here unfortunately are the solid wood with two planks in the engineered since I had to return that pretty sample that was large in picture #14. I love the Brazilian Cherry but some of the pieces were more red than my furniture when I had the big sample here so I was not sure and I should have taken a picture when I had the bigger sample here. I love the Makore and that is why I have 4 samples of it since it looks so real but in the pictures you did not choose it with my furniture and chose the Cabrueva. Now you understand when I say I love the Makore but I wish it had more red in it? The first samples in pics 9 and 10 on the left are the Bruce Park Avenue Makore. Miller88, Thanks for your opinion of Amendoim or Makore which are my favorites along with the Cabrueva. Caminne, Choosing the darkest sample would be either the Cabrueva or the Brazilian Cherry when it darkens up. Thanks for your opinion. Al-Horses, I guess I really wanted a light floor but the real light colors did not do much for the room and seemed to have too much yellow in them or did not look right with the file cabinets so then I thought maybe I will stop thinking light or dark and go with what I feel looks good and so far that is Amendoim (the variations seem to have a red tint to it that looks nice with my desk and is neutral and looks nice in my family room also... I am told the wood will have a lot of knots), Cabrueva (which is Santos Mahogany and picks up colors in my desk and is rich looking and pretty in all my engineered, laminate and solid wood samples) and Makore (= African Cherry... but I wish it has a little bit of a red tint to it that sometimes it fools the eye that it has due to the shine in it picking up the red in the desk.. I love the tones it has and how it looks so real and beautiful) Parma42, I also love the Tiger Wood but when I got solid samples that showed what it looks like at first and what it darkens up to, the dark piece has so many dark black streaks that I was not sure about the Tiger Wood anymore. If the Tiger Wood would not have the black streaks, I love the grain in it and the color variation so much and fell in love with it at the store on the floor along with the Santos Mahogany and the Brazilian Cherry. I like the grain better in the Tiger Wood and the Santos Mahogany than the Brazilian Cherry but I love some of the pretty reds in the Brazilian Cherry so much.

Thanks everyone. I really love getting help and info from you all. I really will have to consider travertine. The granite is Delicatus Gold and I really really like it's look. organic nettie: The half wall is between the kitchen eatting area and a small office. No one ever wanted to go in the office because it was a very closed in feeling. So everyone ended up with lap tops on the kitchen table, especially DH. So the bar area is what I call my "computer bar", DH and kids can park there if they want to be in the kitchen or there is a slab desk of granite behind the bar on the office side where I do my computer stuff. The height of wall without granite is 40.75" and with 3cm granite it is exactlly 42". I think this is standard bar height (if there is such a thing). I will get 30" bar stools. The bar is 14" wide. I wanted it wide enough to accommadate computers or a 12" dinner plate and could not go any wider because of the space confinement with the kitchen table/chairs near it. I would not have built things this way if I was starting from scratch but it is working for us and is a big improvment over the small office. If you look at the picture (in link above labeled "granite install" you can see the metal supports under the bar the DH made. The over hang on kitchen side is 8". Generally any over hang greater than 8" needs to be supported. Since the bar only overhangs on the opposite side of the wall by 1.5" we needed support.

It sounds like a nice house! Your dilemma is interesting to me since we also bought a fixer upper (for a retirement project)! Our house has 4" solid rustic maple through the main floor. We had it re-finished and it is very pretty. BUT, I often wish we had used wall to wall carpeting in some of the rooms. I find the hardwood to be somewhat colder (even with large area rugs), not as quiet, and more involved cleaning! I'm not clear on your meaning of this: I just replaced the carpet in the living room, sunroom, office, and the 1st floor master. I'm satisfied with having carpet in the master bedroom & office. Do you only have carpet in two rooms now? I think that would be fine. As far as the hardwood issue, it would seem the installer tried to cut corners on the subfloor prep. He either doesn't know how, or doesn't want to do the job you hired him for. Or he's hoping you will eventually give up. If the floor is "bouncy", it's only a matter of time until the new nails work their way loose. Put it in writing that he has one more opportunity to completely redo the floor, whatever that requires, or you will hire someone else at his expense to do it right.