Originally Posted By: a401classic
When we bought ours, the boxes said 50 year protection, so maybe they have made some improvements, but I think it has a lot to do with the hardness of the wood underneath the coating. This santos mahogany is the hardest wood I've ever worked with and the area at our computer desk is showing signs of indentations and light scratches, but the surface coating is holding up well. We have some neighbors that also installed Bellawood flooring - cherry I think - and they have a dog. Even with the hard coating, their floor is trashed.

And hence the problem with dog nails and any wood product (you should see our low window sills at the front of the house).

There are only two ways that i see around the problem.
Either you have a light coloured floor such as the maple (or other wood unstained) such that the dog nail scratches won't show up against a dark finish; or you get a laminate floor.

It is likely we will choose the laminate flooring since we will always have a dog and won't be putting in a light colour wood. We put laminate in the basement and people have asked if it was real wood. It has a surface texture that is deceiving. It is a Tarkett 'hand scraped' product.

Now what to choose when we change out our present all wood windows. Interior colours of PVC are limited to white or almond, neither of which goes with our house, or we get all wood again or a wood laminate interior finish (again subject to dog nails on the lower windows).


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