Let's talk hardwood flooring. Who's got them or has had them? Pros? Cons?

[Jer]

I did just rip out around 800 square feet of beer stained (not sure how that happened) and pet vomit stained carpet. Going to preface it with I don't have kids or large energetic dogs in the house. If I didnt have a business selling hardwood floors the other product I would look at besides hardwood is bamboo (with formaldehyde free glue). Personally I would keep/add tile in kitchens or bathrooms. Both hardwoods and bamboo are easy to keep clean and spilled beers and pet vomit will come up quickly even if you find it a couple days later. Both are natural products, are long lasting, and have a natural beauty where every board is unique. Personally I am not a big fan of laminate because of the limited number of patterns used to create it and the fact that the top layer is essentially plastic although it works great in some situations. At one point I would have considered cork until I was on a job site with new cork and the initial VOC emissions were nauseating. This may not be the case with all cork floors but it turned me off.

Two more pics of hardwood floors I was involved with. The first is an engineered American Walnut here in the Springs (very soft, so a no shoes kind of floor). The second is a solid floor in a model home in Minnesota.

So talk to me about hardwood v bamboo then. The thought had crossed my mind but then I started hearing horror stories although now it seems as though most of those may have been an inferior engineered product and possibly a better product would hold up better and put it back in the running. I would have thought that by now bamboo would be less expensive than comparable hardwood since it grows so quickly and is so much easier to produce. It seems as though demand has kept the prices up to where hardwood is or more still. I like the idea of soft as we go barefoot but I'm concerned with long-term reliability & durability if we do that. I also had a buddy that did their kitchen floor in cork because his wife wanted a softer surface but after doing that they both swore they'd never do cork flooring again. Just one opinion I guess but it was enough to scare me away from attempting it and will likely just opt for tile in the kitchen & bathrooms. We've got vinyl flooring for now that will be fine until I feel like taking on tile work but as bad as this carpet is I think this project should come first.