Yes, I believe they are a fad, and I'll tell you why. They're virtually impossible to screen and recoat. That's basic maintainence every 5-10 years. You bring in a heavy duty buffer and "rough up" the floors and then reapply a finish coat. With hand scraped, you have to do all of the screening by hand if you're going to get "down in the hollows" as well as hit the high points. That's a lot more maintainence intensive, as well as expensive. If you don't do the screen and recoat, and now you have to refinish, then you have to machine sand, although I suppose you could pay exhorbitantly for someone to hand sand the whole floor. Sanding will take off the high spots and even the flooring out. That hand scraped look will be gone. They'll be flat and smooth--which was the goal of most of our forefathers who put in wood floors. Rustic plank floors weren't meant for upscale homes. THose were workman's homes. They were just waxed cheap pine boards that if they were lucky got stripped and rewaxed every couple of years. Nice wood floors in more upscale homes, such as oak or mahogany, were sanded smooth, shellaced, and waxed, and kept buffed to a high shine by paid help. It's a peculiar reversal of status to have hand scraped and rustic floors now rather than smooth high shine ones. It's much like during the old days when pale skin was considered beautiful and desirable by the elite and if you had a tan, that mean that you had to work outside and thus were of a lower social status. Then that reversed, and the social elite were the only ones who had the leisure and money to travel to exotic locations to acquire a tan, and the pale folks were the ones in the factories out of the sun.

This is great info . Thanks I need to replace a 72" x 88" opening. I currently have one picture window along the top two picture windows on the bottom with a roll out window in the center. I'd prefer it to be one big picture window. Can you tell me what brand has the best price and energy efficient? Renewal by Anderson's bid was really high and Home Depot didn't offer a window that size.

Thank you, voila, for coming out of lurkdom to help me! This HAS been painful in the sense that I really dislike being in limbo, uncertain, and indecisive, which has also been time-consuming since I have been looking at paint colors off and on for 2 or 3 years, and stewing around about them trying to figure this out. To clarify regarding the Carlisle Cream with the hint of pink: this is not the trim color. I will try to see if I can find the name somewhere in my files, but the color of the trim for all of the house and most of the ceilings has a yellowish cast. The Carlisle Cream is only on the ceiling in the DR & MBR (and the paint chosen for the DR will also be used in the MBR which faces NW), as well as the walls of the mudroom, laundry, powder room, and MBath. You are correct that it fights with yellow, because the tiles have hints of yellow tones, and it does not look good there. Except for the 2 ceilings, the Carlisle Cream will be changed to something that goes better with all of the tiles and countertops that probably need a color with some yellow, rather than pink, in it. When we painted our former N facing foyer with Pittsfield Buff, it really pulled together the colors of the 2 small rugs and tile, which are almost the same as what we have now. But that is a whole nuther story. Wythe & Palladian Blues are on my "possible" list, so I will give them further consideration. The HC 139-141 at first glance under kitchen lighting seemed minty, but the lighting in the LR is halogen, so they look different in there. I will need to see them on a sunny day. Another vote for HC 146, 147, and Gray Wisp is good! And I really like your suggestion of Quiet Moments. It is interesting that you say, "all greens seem to go together", which I had heard before. The reason I got a new LR rug was that my old one had multiple colors of green and greenish gold on a cream field, and to me it clashed with the fireplace in daylight. I moved it into the kitchen eating area that has the same slate tile on the other side of the 2-way FP where it only gets light from the NW which is not directly on it as it is in the LR, and it looks perfect in the different light! Also, if I turned the LR rug around, it would look much better upon entering the room, but to me the green from that direction looks awful with the FP green. I think it will be a lot easier to choose the DR paint than that for the LR. I will definitely pursue looking at grayed colors for both rooms, but I would still like to try maybe a rich tan that does not lean to red or yellow and see if that could work in the LR to pull out those colors in the rug, but maybe nothing will do this? I suppose that would only add to the blendy feeling that I am so good at achieving. I had originally imagined having a sort of rich, dark cream, but I guess that would mean yellow, so it is out. A correction regarding the "drapes." They are actually 4 drapery panels on each side of a 7 ft triple casement that help to set off the piano and a small chest near the creamy beige rug, and at each end of a 4 window bank (each 42" wide) next to the chest and behind the mauve wing-back near the FP. They are not directly next to the 9 x 12 "green" rug. The 2 rugs are separated by the sofa, so you do not see much of the Bokhara when entering the LR. I know that all the detail causes many people not to read this, but I welcome comments from anyone who has the patience to work through them to give me additional guidance. Anne

I had med-dark floors and what made them look dirty was the sheen! I believe chinchette. They were engineered wood and they were so smooth you could see footprints in sunlight with CLEAN feet right out of the bath not even wet. Drove me nuts. I've been wanting to go with real wood (handscraped with a little tonal variation to hide dings/scratches). I may consider engineered if I can get it in a matte finish, because the engineered held up beautifully in my previous kitchen, and I'm worried about a true hardwood in that area. It will be one or the other, I love wood floors. My friend had a darker almost espresso floor, now those you had to dust all the time to keep looking clean.