@Patricia Colwell Consulting hi, thank you for the information I appreciate it

@Patricia Colwell Consulting can you share the LVP brand?

It was 13 yrs ago it was called Allure from HD not sure if it is still the same stuff we got it because it mande sense for us at the time very affordable too. It had oieces that stuck to eachother as you layed it so really virtually water proof .

My sister had hardwood in 2 homes, wanted a different look and less work in her new home. She got stone look grouted LVT and is happy as a clam. Loves her LVT and finds it easier to maintain and cleaner than hardwood. She says that no matter how often she cleaned her hardwood socks were always dirty on the bottoms because the floors held dirt between the planks. There was also the maintenance and care, trying to make sure no one scratched or marred the flooring (Had dogs/kids). She had a dark stain and as with all dark floors, dust, fuzzies, dog hair all shows.

She has been in her home for about 10 years now and is still in love with her floors.

My niece has hardwood and loves her hardwood (100 year old home - original hardwood), but she has area carpets over most of it due to having 2 dogs and 8 grand kids.

I had tile in my last home and moved to a home with carpet everywhere but the kitchen (yes, even the bathrooms had carpet (yuk)). After 20 years my joints could not withstand the impact of living on tile floors.

Choices were to replace the carpet with Carpet - It is soft and quiet. It gets dirty and is hard to get clean. Muddy paws from an active puppy while delandscaping the yard was a nightmare.

Hardwood - much more expensive - harder than tile or LVT to maintain, would require purchase of area carpets to protect.

LVT - cost efficient - low maintenance, limited lifespan (20 years ish) I'm 59 - 20 years I won't be able to see what it looks like. Can add area carpets for aesthetics, but can eliminate the trip hazards of area carpets as I age in place.

Engineered hardwood seemed to have the same cons as hardwood, but cannot be refinished over and over again - thin layer of wood.

I decided to replace the carpet with LVT, I am doing one room at a time as I renovate, but am very happy with my choice.

I bought Downs H20 from Cloister's Flooring America. It is waterproof and is manufactured by Coretech for the CCA Family of flooring companies. Same product, different name at each company website. Different price at each store (store not company level, two different Flooring America franchises had 2 different prices). Difference from highest price to lowest price was a difference of $2.00 per sq ft - I was covering 2000 sf, so this was a substantial savings.

I loved the franchise I picked - Cloister's Flooring America. Other franchises really pushed the professional install - Cloister's seems to cater to the DYI folks (Owned by a Mennonite family). For $75.00 they send one of their installers out for 2 hours to teach you how to lay the flooring and they will rent you a tool kits that has everything you need to lay your floors. I bought one box of each of two colors and could exchange the one I didn't pick when placing my full order. I also got an additional $500 off because I hadn't placed my order yet and they called because they were having an anniversary sale. I hadn't called because I had a heart attack and was in the hospital when I got the call. They gave me the $500 off and told me I could call when I was home and feeling up to ordering even though the sale was just for the week. They even helped me with the layout plan. Told me to use graph paper and tracing paper. I drew out my floor plan on graph paper and traced the outline of the flooring pattern on the tracing paper. You place the tracing paper over the floor plan and move it around until you have a placement that doesn't leave you with little 2" strips anywhere. You do have to be exacting in your measurement and drawing of the floor plan and lay out enough pieces to get exact measurements for your tracing. I didn't find this method on the internet anywhere - most have you plan from the center of the room, but this worked out really well for me.

https://www.bobvila.com/articles/best-flooring-for-dogs/ I had to laugh at the part about the lack of traction of laminate floors because we see that every day with the laminate floor in our second home that we are planning to replace soon with LVP.

If you are looking for a walnut tone, what color are your dogs? Light fur from shedding dogs is really going to show up. Here is a LVP suggestion for the wood tone you are looking for. https://www.flooret.com/arbor-72-click/

Our primary home has 100 year old site laid hardwood floors throughout the first and second floors, even in the kitchen. They are really nice, but I do need to be somewhat more careful with them. When it came time 4 or 5 years ago to gut and re-do our basement, we chose LVP from Flooret. It really is super easy to maintain and doesn't show scratches. We have a dog.

Now we are re-doing both levels of our second home in a LVP from Karndean. We were looking for attractive look, ease of maintenance, reasonable pricing, and minimal worries about moisture issues. https://www.karndean.com/en/floors/landing-pages/family-friendly/pet-friendly

I had a sample of this home and had considered it also. https://stainmaster.com/vinyl/petprotect-luxury-vinyl-flooring

I would check out WoodCo, they are a wood flooring mill and can pretty much do whatever wood flooring you want. Great price and top quality! www.woodco.com