@Nancy Tomazin I like cobblestones for edging more than for walking, but there is a separate issue in your case that is not addressed in these other posts. People make the mistake of believing that installing cobblestones is like installing pavers. They are NOT!!!!! Pavers are designed to be very easy to get right, as long as the foundation is firm and leveled. Installing pavers is basically like painting by numbers. You do not have to be an artist to paint by numbers. You just need to put each block in its proper place. As a result, nearly any trained landscaper can do a paver project and come out looking good. I did say "trained". Cobblestones are freeform objects, with different shapes, textures, and thicknesses. To do a good cobblestone installation requires an expert mason. And what you are paying that mason for is not his ability to mix and apply cement to the cobbles. What you are paying that mason for is his 20 years of experience as an ARTIST. His artistry will show up in his ability to superimpose a geometric pattern that is appropriate to the cobblestone and area you are building and to then fit the stone into that pattern. This is NOT painting by numbers. This is artistry from the ground up. Let's look at a real photo. Consider this cobblestone walkway. What you can "feel" in this photo if you stare at it for a while is that the mason created perfectly symmetric and evenly spaced wavy lines spaced equally across the width of the walkway. He then fit the irregular cobble shapes into those perfect symmetric patterns. The people who do those kinds of installs well are one in 100. Now compare this to your installation. The installer had no sense of geometry at all. He was treating the cobbles like pavers and simply shoving them all together. If you were aiming for the look of a prehistoric road, then I guess this comes close to that. If you wanted something aesthetic for a typical walkway, the installation looks just wrong, for *cobblestones*.

Thanks all! Really wish I remember the paint. I did examine it once and it wasn’t any special off brand kind. It was black paint that was made for exterior applications. They didn’t prime, they had to do several coats and were really exceptional painters though, the kind that don’t use tape and they freehanded everything. It was pretty incredible. Like I said, after a year, some wear showed where leaves or debris had hit the paint and chipped a bit but quick touch ups were easy for me to tackle.

It would seem that the flooring has grey undertones which means a grey cabinet color would work nicely and is on trend. Accessible Beige is another great suggestion. Notice, too, that the other furniture in the picture with the flooring is a cream color - not stark white - meaning a warm white would work also.

Here is a followup to my original posting. Installation of the plank flooring is rather easy but preparing the subfloor is anything but! We are very happy with the final results but getting there wasn’t easy. Some of the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory, has been down for more than a year. None of it shows any signs of wear, even when inspected carefully. We vacuum all of the floors in the house every week using 2 inexpensive eufy robo vacs and mop once a month. The color does not show the dirt easily. If you walk on it when it is wet after mopping, it often shows footprints when dry, during certain times of the day when the natural light is just right. I expect the floor to be looking good long after I’m gone. I think the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory, is an excellent product. It is really tough. It locks together easily if you follow the directions. Delivery was only one week late; very good considering the supply chain issues at that time. The planks had 5 distinct patterns. I was expecting 6. Bear in mind that the characteristic feature of a pattern, such as a unique knot, can appear on the left side or the right side of a plank and might appear at any location along the length of the plank. So there is a lot of variation among the planks. Before putting them down, I separated a few boxes into 5 different piles of planks, based on the pattern. I installed the flooring in our smallest bedroom first, by myself in November 2021. Waited for spring to resume work. I hired a helper in May 2022 for the remainder after a knee became very painful. My helper connected the planks together and marked the pieces to be cut. I selected the planks from the piles for him to put down and and made the cuts, so I could remain on my feet. I used an electrically powered table saw, jigsaw and a mitre saw to make the cuts. Discovered weeks later that I tore the lateral meniscus in my right knee, probably from getting up and down from the floor so much. Had surgery on the knee in November 2022. Not sure when I’ll start the last small bedroom. All rigid core plank flooring that locks together and floats on top of the sub floor requires a subfloor that is unusually flat. The floor does not have to be level. It does have to be flat. If the subfloor has significant peaks and valleys, (high spots and low spots) the relatively rigid planks will bridge over the low spots, leaving an air space between the top of the subfloor and the bottom of the plank. Stepping on a plank that is bridging over a low spot will cause a popping or snapping sound. You may find the popping and snapping sounds to be annoying. I have learned that most of these noises subside, almost completely, after several months. If the valley is too deep, your weight will stress the tongue and groove locking mechanism too much. Repeated stepping on such a spot will likely cause it to fail. Then the planks may move independently of one another and come apart. That would be a serious problem. Our one story home was built in 2000. It has a concrete subfloor. I have installed the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory in one small bedroom, a large bedroom/sitting room and a laundry room. In every room I had to flatten the subfloor before installing the plank flooring. I did the small bedroom first. After watching several Youtube videos, I decided to grind down the high spots instead of filling in the low spots. I bought all new gear to do the job, since I had 950 sq ft of flooring to install. That was a big mistake. Grinding down a concrete floor is an extremely slow, noisy, dirty, dusty, hazardous, and physically demanding job. Here is a photo of the floor in the small bedroom. In subsequent rooms I filled in the low spots with LevelQuik RS Self-Leveling Underlayment, made by Custom Building Products. Mixing and applying this product requires at least 2 people. It’s sold by The Home Depot and others. I did not cover the entire floor with the leveling compound. That would have required about 3 times as much leveling compound and would have raised those floors about ⅛ “ which I didn’t want to do. (Self-Leveling is a misnomer. The stuff is the consistency of thin pancake batter and requires some assistance and tooling to make a smooth flat surface. For the purpose of creating a flat subfloor for plank flooring in a home, I suggest that you add about 10% more water than the directions indicate. Doing so will make it flow better without adversely affecting its performance when cured.) Prior to applying the leveling compound, I applied Multi-Surface Bonding Primer (MBP) to the concrete floor to ensure a tight bond between the original concrete and the leveling compound. (MBP is also made by Custom Building Products.) If you use the MBP you can feather the leveling compound to zero, and don’t have to maintain a minimum thickness of ⅛” over the entire floor. Here are some photos of the floor in the large bedroom completed in June 2022. Finding the borders of the high and low spots is tedious. Next time I will probably pour water in the previously identified low spots of the floor. Then I’ll mark the boundaries of the “puddles” with a large permanent black felt tip maker. Then vac up the water, let dry, apply MBP, and finally the leveling compound. The floor in the laundry room between the garage and the kitchen gets a lot of abuse. It was installed in September 2022. As you can see, the color of the flooring is highly dependent upon the light. That's why it's important to look at samples in your home. Paige; The Flooret Modin Base Soho sample that I tested was more abrasive compared to the SUPERCore Xtreme, Cattanooga Hickory sample. I hope this update is useful for some of you who are considering rigid core vinyl plank flooring.