If you are considering a prefinished engineered wood floor you actually may be surprised to find that site finished hardwood may be less money. It usually is (depending on the quality level of course). You are best off to go to your local mom and pop wood flooring place to budget. Then compare that to engineered wood floors you like.

Look at engineered European Oak in unfinished Prime grade.

Prime will not have knots and cathedrals you're seeing in Rustic. Link. 7" is listed. They say custom sizes are available.

1. Pre-sanded, precision-milled
2. Square edges
3. Sawn top layer laminated to exterior-grade Baltic Birch plywood with waterproof, formaldehyde-free adhesive

Ciravova EcoLinkFix Plus is an ultra-matte finish.

Hakwood can also produce flooring in a custom configuration. Link. They supply 4-11/32" and 5-9/16" in the Signature series. Link.

Micro or square edge will affect the look.

Thanks everyone. I am looking at all my options. Labor costs are so high here, and with my timing being tight I'm not sure finishing afterwards is an option, but I will surely check it out.

When you create a time restriction for a major investment, ending up with the best price gets less likely. Getting the better quality products, because they're often in demand, will also be less likely. A non-standard time limitation more often results in a lower quality product with lower quality labor at a higher overall cost. To somewhat reduce the cost and time, one step is to get pro installation and diy the finishing. Imo finishing can be accomplished by following YT vids without prior experience.

dan1888. I agree. My contractor has told me he can put plywood under everything and I can spend the time getting it right. As long as the thickness is the same. The other option I am considering is just using tile in the kitchen. Not the end of the world and probably lower maintenance, and figure out the rest of the house later. I am not a DIY person so I will have to rely on someone else to do it.

Do you make entries, deserts, even snacks? If you do, you're diy. On the other hand, if DoorDash is bringing everything, you'd need to refocus.

dan1888

I‘m old with bad knees. I’ve done a lot of dyi in the past. Im happy that I have the money to pay someone to do it now.

Then invest the time to get a finished floor you can look at every day and enjoy. Hakwood and the unfinished Monarch Plank flooring use quercus robur oak from France. Other sources use Eastern European Oak species at times sourced from Russia and produced in SE Asia. Some are very good. Ciranova is a Blanchon French company making finishes since the 1800s.

Great advice. i am currently looking at people that can do just that. biggest issue now is to get the depth figured out to match the future floors going in as I have the cabinets arriving in 2 days.