Oil finishes are a major fail for anyone wanting low maintenance. Everything mars them and requires that you rework the finish with the oil soaps or restoring oils. It is high maintenance, and not very protective.

Matte finishes are not exclusive to oil finished floors. They sre avsilable in multiple finish types that perform far better. Engineered, if it is a good quality, is indistinguishable from solid, other than it is more stable and has less issues.

I remodeled and used Mirage engineered and am pleased with my selection.

I had considered white oak but I have a LOT of white oak as my cabinets which extend into the dining area are quarter sawn white oak and my large wall of builtins and desk area in the den area is also white oak as is my stripper pole television cabinet holder/room divider. 🤣

Because of that I opted for red oak so there would be more of a contrast. I did get the more expensive Select which had a quieter grain. Mirage comes with a more matte finish as well as a standard satin finish. After reading the pros and cons of the two finishes in terms of maintenance I opted for the standard finish.

My floors are a natural blonde finish and really are a background rather than the stars in my home as I have rugs which are more of the stars.

In terms of selecting Mirage versus other brands, the company is located in Canada and at least according to their literature uses green construction as well as forestry. It also has a good wear layer although I would probably not refinish the floor anyway because of logistics in a highrise even if I outlived the floor as I would just get another factory finished engineered hardware. The actual finish was well reviewed and that was what I was more interested in since realistically I wanted a durable floor since I didn't want to deal with refinishing and I assumed that a moderately good wear layer would be more likely to occur in conjunction with a good finish as well.

In terms of cost I would assume that the cost has gone up significantly. I purchased my floors in the Spring of 2018 and it was $8.00 per square foot. My installation was quite expensive as I had cement floors which had originally been "poured" for wall to wall and so they needed leveling product; plus cork for soundproofing plus another layer of plywood so the installation costs for 1000 square feet were $10,000 plus $8000 for the wood itself.

I could have opted for an engineered site finished floor - given my subfloors solid hardwood would not be a great option but I didn't want to deal with it and also thought that a factory finish would be more reliably durable and a durable finish was what I was most concerned about. I don't think my floors look plasticky but they aren't the stars of my home as I wanted something classic and innocuous. I actually had site finished floors installed when I moved into my condo years ago and I was literally still finding sawdust in the corners of closets for years - plus there is no way I would want to move everything out of my unit for installation AND not be able to access it while it is being finished and cured.

I'm building a house and went though the floor selection process this past year. I didn't like the finish on Mirage floors, it had a plastic-y shine even on the low gloss versions. I am on a slab so had to go with engineered. If I had the option of site finished, that would be my first choice.