Thanks everyone. I really do want wood. Most of our house has tile (which is poorly installed and in time we will replace with wood as well) but the master bedroom and loft area that my boys use as a bedroom is carpeted (the the stairs to the loft). The house was built in 1995 and in Florida in any home that isn't over 100 years old, it's totally unheard of to have hardwood subfloors. Just poured concrete. We've had plenty of carpet, vinyl, tile, laminate, and floating wood floors through the years in other homes. I really dream of doing what Scott did and dismantling an old structure to use as flooring but I don't think that's going to work for us. Partly because of the "nailing or glueing in humidity" thing and partly because of the time and expense. I guess that the floating engineered hardwood is the way for us to go. Someone, though, mentioned one of my big issues with it - the scant top layer. I don't want something we have to rip up in 15 years because we can't sand it down. I really want something that we could sand down when needed and it would still look lovely (although loved and worn) in 80 years! I want "real", not "engineered", y/k? I'm going to have to look into the hardwood planks grown in humid climates but I was under the impression that if you glued or nailed those down, they would still swell too much in our climate.
