Glad to help with any information. You absolutely should remodel with what is appropriate for the neighborhood, and consider resale especially if you plan to sell anytime soon. Wood flooring, be it engineered or solid, is one of the best remodeling choices and gives a high return on investment. If cost is not a prohibitive factor then go for the solid wood flooring options, but just know that solid floors will have their limitations as mentioned above. Again, you need to have someone come out and inspect your property because no flooring project is exactly like another, every situation is different and unique. Its hard to give you all of the pros and cons since I don't know your particular situation. Ask your neighbors or friends that have existing wood floors what products they used and find out how satisfied they are with their floors. If a solid product will work for your situation and that is what you want, then go for it. There are many beautiful solid choices out there. As far as the statement about "a lot of engineered products are floating" is completely false. We are not talking about laminate flooring which uses a floating system (meaning there is no glue adhering the floor to the substrate, the floor is snapped together using a tongue and groove system). Engineered flooring can and usually is glued to the substate under most situations. If a customer is concerned with cost, then one of the options is to use a floating application if the manufacturer recommends it. But that is certainly not the norm, most customers do want the wood to be glued down. I agree if a floating application is chosen for an engineered product it will sound hollow when walked on and will feel different from a glued down application or solid nail down application. Engineered flooring is real hardwood flooring. It has a wear layer of varying thicknesses - the thicker the wear layer, the more expensive the product will be but it will have the opportunity to be sanded and refinished more often compared to a thinner wear layer. Underneath the wear layer is a composite of layers that can be of the same species, or of different species. The grain of each layer runs in different directions, which makes it very stable. This means that the wood will expand and contract less than solid wood flooring during fluctuations in humidity and temperature. I have 2 kids and a large chocolate lab and the flooring in my home is glued down engineered Santos Mahogany. It does not sound hollow when walked on, nor has my dog contributed scratches to my flooring and it has been down for 9 years. The biggest culprit of scratches to tell you the truth is my wife's vacuuming over the wood. The vacuum will pick up rocks or small pebbles and scratch the floor. The safest option is to clean with a broom or microfiber dusting head followed by a manufacturer approved cleaning system. I hope I have not confused you anymore than necessary. I just don't want you to think that you only have one option. Check out the following website for the National Wood Flooring Association (www.woodfloors.org) they have a wealth of information on wood flooring. Good luck with your flooring search and again contact me with any questions, I can go over your exact situation if you provide me more details. Call me at (949) 279-8858 and I would be happy to tell you more. Jason Elliott - www.elliottfloorcovering.com

Hi katebain, A quick note about our experience: Brigitte and I consistently design between 70-90 kitchens/year (for over 34 years) and have literally designed thousands of kitchens.....We also design full structural including below-grade foundation plans..... We have 2 Chicagoland locations and a Michigan location which cover the Wisconsin to Indiana borders, N.W. Indiana and S.W. Michigan..... Anyway, We've attached a few images from recent projects that seem to address your questions.....Please take a peek at our Pinterest board (http://www.pinterest.com/windycityjohn/kitchen-backsplashes/) that has numerous backsplash configurations from some of our latest projects.....Hope this helps a bit!.....John & Brigitte.

All these people claiming they have so much experience is hilarious because they still have no idea how to do this LMFAO!!! If its done properly it will be fine. I literally just ripped 650SQFT of solid oak floor out of one of my apartments 2 weeks ago. Not only was it laid on concrete, but heated concrete. There are also to grades in this one apartment, same grade and below grade. It was built in 1964 and was original floor. ALL of the 100's apartments in the area have the same thing. There was no rot and no loose boards. I could even see the back side of the boards and they barely used any glue lol. Unfortunately the tenants just destroyed it so bad it couldn't be refinished. Thats the difference of the TRUE craftsman of the past and these "modern" craftsman (if they can even be called that). Modern don't know squat. Then if you google this situation, you read about "doom & gloom" stories from other people that don't know squat. I've done full remodels to many of my apartments by myself and I've grown skeptical of many things were told today. Bathrooms is another thing. I've redone all the bathrooms also. All they used back then was green drywall with tile glued straight to them. I only changed them because the tile was very old fashioned. When I ripped them, there was no mold or anything and one of the bathrooms was without calking for years lol (tenants didn't tell me). I've had some of my buildings for 30 years and never had any issues. The past 5 years I've been steadily upgrading the look of my apartments. Of course since I'm already doing the work I used cement board. In my opinion we are told many of these things these days so we have to spend more money on materials and labor. Its such a crooked market. Anyways, I ended up putting luxury/locking vinyl planks to replace the floor. Its says you don't have to but they recommend using an underlayment/ vapor barrier. I'm thinking to myself, I just ripped 60 year old real wood that didn't have any underlayment and I have to put underlayment for this plastic crap? For what? To spend more $money$ thats for what.

I used five thin (I suppose I don't know if there is a spec for how thick thin is or not) coats of oil based as I was not concerned with yellowing as I did a darker stain 12 years ago and they still look great. I touched up a couple scratches from furniture and the like and they are good as new. Some of the floors in my new house were done 22 years ago (per the former owner) with oil poly and they look great too. I do have to touch up the few scratches but the scratch remover stuff works fine based on my other house. The rest of the floors in the new place (other than the kitchen which is red oak over the original pine) have never been refinished in 86 years (again per former owner, he moved into the place over 80 years ago) and they do need something done. What do you mean exactly by penetrating finish? That is, what are you recommending. Like I said I am not a pro. I just have a lot of wood floors.