Hi. I'm looking to add hardwoods to about 600sf of living room, dining room, and kitchen (all one mostly open area). 1st floor but with crawlspace. Plywood subfloor. NC so fairly humid if the A/C is off which is rare but does happen.

I've been all over the map looking at options but am coming back to the basics, solid hardwood or maybe engineered, traditional (not handscraped). I want a low/no gloss finish as well. I like wide width but wouldn't want to do more than 3.5" solid due to the humidity.

Anyway, I'm trying to find something in the $4.50ish area. My concerns are if the engineered would be better considering it will be in the kitchen.

Any brand advise would be appreciated. I have a commercial hardwood installer who will put it down for me but he didn't have a lot of advice in choosing a wood (just puts down what he is paid to - does a good job though).

Also prefinished vs site finished. I know that is a big argument but there it is. If prefinished, can I later site finish it? Or is the factory finish difficult to remove?

Find a presanded 3/4 3 ply engineered. Then do some hard wax oil on it like Rubio. Course now you can buy wood like that prefinished with Rubio.
Check out WD Flooring. They have been doing Rubio longer than anyone.