Hardwood floor installer?

[DTisme]

Actually, Obie, we decided on a distressed hardwood that is already scratched up on purpose. I like the look of the scratches, bangs and dings! Best floor we ever had was a soft-wood pine floor with lots of dings in it. If a customer came in wearing high heels, I'd ask her to stomp around a bit just to get it more distressed. I actually tap danced on it regularly. Fun! Even with the laminate we have, the dog occasionally scratches at it, trying to get at a bug or whatever. That's the only good thing about this laminate floor - never shows scratches. Just hates water.

Totally agree about the carpet! Our house was full of it when we moved in. First thing we took care of.

[missydog1]

Ugh, carpet, agree! lol about its cleanest day. So far have torn carpet out of five houses here on island. Three we tore out as soon as escrow closed, first thing. It was disgusting what was underneath in and under the padding.

Love the distressed hardwood idea! Have a friend who designed and built a "colonial" style house in California, who did distressed hardwood so that it would look old from the start. She is a DIY goddess and laid the floor herself and stained and sanded the whole thing, the whole house. It looks amazing.
This is a little bit of it she has online:
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/phot...1930pbogjb
(She and her husband made all the wainscoting and trim too.)

I didn't know there was distressed pre-finished. That will look so great, with the wonderful feel only wood has -- and no sanding!

PS. My son refinished two floors for us that were quite distressed, so have had the look and was happy with it.
40's camp house with original pine flooring that was a real mess and looked like this:
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/phot...2048gWvFOv
refinished
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/phot...2048kFqtHg
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/phot...2048fvBGqm
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/phot...2048oQCosr

Picked a dark stain because the floor had so many blemishes and cuts.
Our Hilo house had a super abused Doug fir floor under the carpet -- 60 years old and holes from tack strips, razors, termites, paint spills, no way it was going to look perfect, so we embraced the distressed.
I don't have the before pic online, but it came out like this:
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/phot...2048kloBxO

This is the oak floor we had put in our California kitchen.
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/phot...2048PgeaWt
We tried to match the 1930 wood flooring color and look as best we could. We found the hardwood really livable and soft on the feet.

Laminate feels like walking on plastic. That's what I don't like about it.
Wood feels warm and solid and grounding.