I will be placing new flooring through my kitchen, LR (K and LR will be continuous once we get the wall out of the way), hallway, and two additional adjoining rooms. Because of our timing, and their reported increased stability, we are mostly looking at engineered floors.
I find myself most attracted to matte finished flooring, we need cool colors to go with our kitchen scheme, and especially those floors with rough wood texture (NOT hand scraped, but the ones where the fibers of the wood can be felt if you run your hand across them). The sales people assure me that they will last 25 yrs, but I am skeptical. I have read about the thickness of the top layer, the manner in which that layer is cut from the wood, and the durability of aluminum oxide coatings, but not so much about the textures. It also seems that there are so many different manufacturers, its been difficult to track down the ones people have listed on this forum as dependable quality ( Owens Plankfloor, Canterbury Signature Engineered, Real Wood Floors engineered ).

Is there anyone out there with experience with this sort of floor? I have teenage kids with one foot out the door, and a large but gentle dog. Thanks.