Hello! I am so glad to have found this forum, as I have having difficulties making some decision on the flooring in my home. We have Armstrong/Robbins engineered wood in a warm honey tone, that has been down about seven years, in my foyer and great room. The home is an open floor plan, as when you come in the front door, there is an office area to the right and a dining room to the left which are carpeted, and which I would like to replace with hardwoods. My questions:
1. Is it unrealistic to expect that NO scratches will be on a floor even with conscientious care (we have two kids and three cats)? Is there any engineered wood that is more conducive to showing NO scratches?

2. The scratches we have are by no means excessive, but they are visible only in certain light and at certain times of the day. Is this unusual and do most people coming into a house notice things like that or is it just me that scrutinizes the scratches and imperfections?

3. As to aesthetics, I am having trouble matching up the existing hardwood to samples available to do the new rooms. Would it be better to bite the bullet and pull out all of the hard wood in the existing areas (about 1,000 square feet and start over, OR to do something such as a different color border to try to take attention away from any slight color variances between the old and the new?
Thanks for any help

As much as I am not in favor of my clients buying wood from carpet manufacturers Shaw has a new finish they claim is scuff resistant......notice they say resistant. It's so new I think the word is "wait and see."

http://shawfloors.com/Default.aspx?DN=1 ... ,Documents

1) Yes

2) I think your obsessing

3) If it were me I would go with a feature strip/border in the doorway and get as close as possible match or go totally different...perhaps a distressed and or handscraped look.