I just saw this, Itsoi. I left the mustard on there for 24 hours and then cleaned it off. It faded completely after a short time (maybe a couple of days, I can't remember). I never heard about conditioning it, that could be a good idea but we've been pretty harsh on ours for the past 3 months and it's holding up really well, so might do that after a year or if a specific room needs it before. I felt that the oil finish would be easier for me to do touch ups on if I needed to. Still have construction going on but we've been living here for the past 3 months. And we routinely throw balls and toys for our dog down the long runway of the living room/hall and I've yet to see her nails scratch up anything! It's been pretty impervious to our kids dripping water in the kitchen also. I don't know how it will look in 5/10 years but at the moment, I'm still really happy with our choice. It seems like a very low maintenance, easy to clean (doesn't show much dirt/dust!) floor. We paired the Rockwood Claystone with BM OC17 on our walls and like the color combo. If you're leaning towards buying it, just buy 1 box and pop it together somewhere you can look at it for a week or so. I think you'll get a pretty good idea then if you like it or not. And if you like it, you can reuse it, win win! Good luck!

Just for clarification, Patricia, we’re planning to take out the existing hardwood that we originally put in the foyer area and replace it with engineered hardwood. We wanted to put the new hardwood throughout our first floor, living room, dining room, family room, and kitchen. Beth, I really like the hardwood picture you included with your comments. That could be a great choice for us, though it might be a bit too light. But I will definitely look into it further! Thank you!

You have to take online reviews with a grain of salt. People who are satisfied are less likely to take the time to post a review than people who are dissatisfied. Can you tell whether the people who are dissatisfied are that way because of the product, or the installation? The manufacturer can't be held responsible for the installation. Every product is going to have some negative reviews. Look for ones that seem coherent and give good descriptions of the issues to try to discover where the problem actually is. It's very time consuming to figure this stuff out.

They did all the appropriate floor prep. Old glue was removed, cement slab was grinder smooth. They checked for level and said my floor was the most flat and level they had ever seen! (A tile installer in another room said the same thing). They didn’t need to add any self leveler compound anywhere, which they said they sometimes do. I believe they did a moisture test, no moisture barrier is installed because where I am engineered wood is glued straight to the slab. Not sure the type of glue but they said it’s the best (yellow stuff), not sure about changing the trowels. Good to know about changing them. But, I have hollow spots in the first rows they laid. They are telling me a possible reason is because these were thicker and wider boards which make it harder to make good contact…I am considering contacting the manufacturer, but don’t want to make a mess of my floors if there will be no benefit for me (compensation, redoing my floors, etc) but not sure they would do anything for my benefit…