A satin can look a shock hazy...depending on the product. If you LIKE a shiny floor you will HATE a lower gloss.

I generally like semi gloss but i am considering Satin because:1) it’s more modern and trendy 2)I am installing hardwood in the kitchen and was reading it’s more practical and forgiving for high traffic areas

Imagine feeling like your floor is never clean. Imagine thinking the floor only looks good when wet. Now imagine you clean and clean and clean....but they never look good. Oh dear. That's happened all look often I could just spit.

Don't follow trends with 25 year long products. Do it with pillows. Not floors.

We had our floors refinished earlier this year and went with a matte finish (we had a satin previously). I MUCH prefer the matte. I'm a pretty meticulous house keeper and don't feel at all that my floors look dirty because they don't look shiny. The satin finish we had previously was fine as well, but I don't think I'd like anything shinier than that.

What did you use - satin or semi-gloss? If Satin, how do you like it compared to Semi-gloss? I'm going through the same situation. We had semi-gloss which I liked, even though it's not popular. Tomorrow they're doing top coat and not sure if I should do satin or semi-gloss on a Duraclear espresso stain.

We went with semi gloss. Before that we had oil top coat, i think and the semi gloss was more glossy. This time they applied water based top coat and it barely has any gloss. Very minimal, so not sure how satin would look in wTer based, probably full :)

In 20 years in the home renovation business we've never done wood floors in anything shinier than satin. And lately, we've been doing a great deal of matte which I like even better. Trendy? Maybe. But so good at concealing minor scratches and imperfections.