We are doing our dining room soon, and have been looking at pre finished floors, so far we seem to like the choices Bruce has......we had two floors installed a few years ago that were finished on stie, and it smelled, and was a mess, we figured this time around we will go PF. thoughts?
also, on the topic, soon we will need our kitchen hallway replaced, I'm thinking we should go tile rather than wood, I would think that in heavy traffic areas, wood would not hold up well. thanks in ad

I like tile in kitchens but also don't like breaking up the flow of the flooring either. Putting wood in hallways works well. I fix lots of wood floors in kitchens. Depends on the layout design.

Prperly maintained, hardwood in the kitchen should pose no problems that you wouldn't encounter with other floor surfaces. Also, it give you the opportunity to change the decor at some time by merely refinishing to a different colour, rather than having to replace the floor to acheive the same.

personally would never lay hardwood or softwood in a kitchen due to the disaster that it might/will become. watter everywhere etc

I have had hardwood in my kitchen seems like forever, and never to replace it for any reason other than a fire we once had. I did however, once have a flood in an upstairs bathroom which caused water damage to the ceiling and floors in my main floor office.
If we were to worry about potential flood damage in a kitchen to the point where it would restrict our choices of kitchen floors, then should we not also hide under our bed to avoid the boogieman?