My mother is 85 years old and has Parkinson's, so she has trouble getting around. I am keeping her in mind with your question. I would go with a low pile carpet, if you were my parent. It is softer for when she falls down. Mom has hardwood in her foyer, dining, and halls, and although they are beautiful, they are mostly covered with throw rugs, which are a tripping hazard, but less slippery for her. She has trouble with getting a "grip" on the floor when standing up, and carpet helps with that. Wheelchairs will run grooves in a hardwood floor.

Redroze, I'm just getting back online and seeing your questions, so I'll try to answer what I can. My new floor in the LR/DR was not pre-finished, it was all site-finished. I did put a pre-finished floor down in my office (no pics, sorry) because I work from home and didn't have time to be without my office for the week it would have taken to have floor sanded etc. The pre-finished does have a different feel to it than the site-finished. I wouldn't say it's grooved, just a more defined difference in between the individual planks. The office doesn't adjoin any other room, except the tiled hallway, so I didn't worry so much about the wood being different there. I see from your pictures what you mean about running the planks the same way and wanting to be sure things don't look odd. One idea might be to take up some of your FR planks, like the first 12 or so, and then put them back down interwoven with the new planks. That way there's not a clear line in between the 2 rooms, but rather a more gradual blending. Here's another couple of pictures, this time of my family room. The first one is a before shot of the hardwood floor + a rug-like carpet. The floor created a frame around the carpet. I had the carpet taken up and new hardwood put in where the carpet originally was, then everything sanded and refinished. You absolutely can't tell where the old wood was vs where the new started. In this case, the new is random width because it opens directly to the kitchen (as opposed to the LR/DR which is all the same width). So, one house, all new site-finished floors in the LR & DR, all new pre-finished floor in the office, original/refinished in the kitchen, and half&half refinished + original in the family room. Boy did we have dust! Hope this helps! New:

"Patience" was a character in one of those Western novels about a staid New England family that headed to California in a covered wagon in the 1800's. She was the girl who wanted to ride wild Mustangs (the horses, not the cars) with her pigtails flying in the wind. Her great-great-grandaughter now cruises California Highways in her souped up Mustang. When she needs to slow down, she sits in the backyard and watches the grass grow. That is about how quickly AVs grow, actually, not even as quickly as the grass. Those times when I craved instant gratification resulted in my acquiring a windowsill of Optimaras. I have read on older posts about Optimaras sprouting quickly, although that is not my experience. I learned about patience on this Forum from those who have been raising AVs for a long time. J This post was edited by fortyseven on Wed, Feb 4, 15 at 16:55

Hi Szara, I would definitely consider all wool! Wool repels stains pretty well and of course it's comfy. I'd just need to find a product that meets my desire for eco-friendliness, and enough variety in color/pattern that I could find something that would work with black dog hair! I will look at the link you just posted, thank you.