floorguy and glennsfc what would you use. We need l000 square feet of hardwood. Our island will be in a dark stained rift quarter sawn oak. The hardwood will go in the kitchen, eating area, living room (great room for those three rooms), den and one bedroom. We would like to use oak on the floor to match the island, but have it stained in a medium brown color. In the past two hardwood finished on site floors we used glitza water based finish. I don't know if glitza is still allowed because of the ureaformaldyhydes (sp??) but would like a satin finish. Maybe we shouldn't be so close minded about unfinished. Maybe we should buy finished but we have to get longer lengths then are usually offered. In VAncouver, B.C. all we see is 4 to 5' at the longest. Just looks like a quilt. And for a l000 square feet of mostly open area that could be deadly. My mind is open and I look forward to your opinions. I know you know a lot more then I do. Can hardly wait to hear your opinions.

Doesn't change my opinion either. With site finish you have a lot more control in the finish color with mixing and still have a chance to match... as someone said if it was done recently you might even have the formula, assuming your goal is to still try and match. My question to the good floor contractor is how they plan on handling the transition. In an ideal set up they would selectively remove some old planks and stagger in some new ones, sand flush, then finish, creating a seamless and undetectable transition. Since you don't have interest in refinishing the other spaces I'm unsure of all the options. If possible it'd be nice to not have a clunky threshold piece in the way.

I would recommend you NOT go to lumber liquidators or some bargain flooring company as there have been issues with fumes emitted from the woods that are imported from China and other areas. I would call a reputable hard wood flooring installation company- someone who you can get references from- and discuss with them your options. Personally, I think you should have the same hardwood flooring throughout your home.

Ok...first things first. Janka hardness ratings only apply to solid hardwood. Engineered planks do not work with Janka because the plied layers underneath are often 'soft woods'. Considering Janka measures how much force it takes to imbed a metal ball into the wood, it isn't possible to offer Janka scores for engineered. They just don't compute. The next thing I'm going to point out is the oddity of trying to match the ENTIRE HOUSE to a single room of existing hardwood. You have a small amount of hardwood that is dictating the rest of the house. It's not impossible but it is HIGHLY unusual. In other words, you are trying to put down more than a thousand square feet of flooring by trying to match 150 - 250sf of dining room (I don't know the size of your dining room so I'm only guessing here). That's a little like putting the cart before the horse. Usually we see this the other way around. Usually we have a house full of hardwood (big amount) but the bedrooms have carpet (small amount). The homeowners then agonize over getting a match for the smaller area. That is normal. As for your price range that you are looking at, they are too low and a little thin. The gold standard is 3/4" thickness (solid or engineered). An engineered product with 3mm or more of wear layer is the base level. The thicker the wear layer the more times a floor can be refinished. The Gold standard is 6mm wear layer (usually in the $10/sf range). If you are having a hard time finding floors that you like, you might want to think about replacing the dining room at the same time. This takes away all the pressure to work with low-grade hardwoods just to get a match to a small amount of hardwood. Solid or engineered should be more than what you are looking at for price. Prefinished wood flooring should be in the $7/sf just to start and they go up from there.