For the reasons Shadow mentioned, looks cleaner and easier to use. The ones in the house also looked they were submerged in grease for the past 6 years. The house was built in 2009, and I'd say it's been at least that long since the house was cleaned. Every switch has dirt impregnated into the plastic. Even if we weren't going to rockers, I'd be replacing the switches with new toggles and plates.

Carpet came from Home Depot. The hardwood is oak. We went through Carpet Exchange. We were going to go through Home Depot, but when the installer came over, he was quite clueless. The guy Carpet Exchange sent over knew what he was talking about. They're here now, actually. Most of the new wood is in place. The refinish guy is here sanding everything down. It was 3 1/4" prefinished red oak in portions of the first floor. We laced in unfinished red oak, and getting it all sanded. He'll bring over some color samples tomorrow so we can pick out the new finish. It's been a bit crazy, not being able to really move in. After this week, we can finally start to get settled.

You leaning toward a dark or light finish? I really like the looks of dark floors, but I think they will show more dirt. I'm pretty sure our hardwoods are on tap for next year.

Good info, thanks.
Pics!

We like the appearance of dark, but with a rambunctious puppy and a 6 year old hockey player, the floors may not be up for the abuse! Dark definitely shows scratches/dirt a little more easily. He's doing the edge sanding and filling today and will lay down a few sample colors for us. We were originally leaning more natural, but red oak might end up a bit pink with just a natural topcoat. I also like that lighter finishes tend to highlight the wood grain a bit more. Oak isn't a terribly "interesting" grain, though so we wouldn't lose much. We were going to go with a natural hickory again, but felt bad tearing up perfectly good hardwood.

I've been taking in progress pics, so I'll get some up once we have this wrapped up!

We used carpet exchange for all the carpet in our old house, they were great. Our old house was all red oak with gunstock stain. Gunstock is a great neutral stain color with a red tone. I agree don't go completely natural. You can go with a tinted clear finish which will tone down the pink and bring out the grain (we did that on all the railings).



I couldn't find any really good pics that show the rail finish.

Here we go. Red oak with a tinted oil based clear finish.

We ended up going with a Nutmeg/medium brown finish with a satin Poly top coat. The original prefinished hardwood that was in 1/3 of the first floor was Gunstock. The floors are now done and we've started moving stuff back in on the first floor.

Hope to make room in the garage today to get at least one of the DDs in there.

Much like our prior house, the formal dining room is being converted to a play room. My wife wanted a large framed whiteboard, so instead of buying one, I made one. I picked up a 4x8 sheet of whiteboard, some cedar fence pickets, and some 1/2" gas pipe. I made a 3' x 4' whiteboard with a paper holder. All told, about $25 or so. Here are a few pictures, one of the completed floor (used to be carpet), my son's bedroom (I'm pleased with how the painted stripes turned out) and the whiteboard.

That is a serious hockey bedroom.

RX-7 Chris wrote:That is a serious hockey bedroom.

It's a pretty cool room. Similar to his room at the other house, except there, I had installed chair rail and painted the bottom blue, top white. I decided to try striping in his new room with the red stripe. We're methodically eliminating every trace of the prior owners. I need to paint the remaining bedrooms/baths upstairs.

Well done huzer. I like what you and the wife have done with the place!

Paint is the easiest and best way to personalize a house.

I went to Home Depot today to get project whiteboard for the basement. I bought 9 sheets ox 4x8 to make a 12'x24' "hockey rink" for my son. Had they been full price, I figured the $108 investment to keep the hardwood floors upstairs in decent condition was well worth it. Instead, they rang up for 1 penny each. So instead of $108, I paid 9 cents for the hockey rink. I'm pretty excited, and it'll be a nice open place for us to play around. He has a couple of small nets, and we'd play on the hardwood because he likes how slippery it is. Now we have slippery whiteboard floor in the basement! Woo!

Quick pic:

did you just tape the seams?

Looks good