One of the softest woods out there. NEVER drag furniture across it nor roll your refrigerator out directly on it. Always move heavier pieces on top of thin pressboard.

If you can live with that go for it. It is one of the most beautiful woods.

I have walnut floors in my bedroom. Everyone who sees the floor tells me it is one of the most beautiful floors they have ever seen. It is unstained, just sealed with a satin matte finish. I love the look....however, it is very soft and dents easily. I was sick the first time I moved a piece of furniture and saw a dent, but I'm over it now. In fact , I am in the process of having walnut kitchen cabinets built.

It has a primarily straight grain but can also have natural veining and curling grain effect giving it a very distinctive style. The color ranges from an off white to a deep sensuous chocolate color to an elegant dark brown with purple hints when air dried.

Bumping in the hopes that more people would share their experiences with walnut as a floor.

Has anyone here had it for more than a few years? How is it holding up?

Anyone have it in a kitchen? A bathroom?

What happens if you accidentally drop something like a ceramic or glass cup? I assume that's enough to dent it? What about high heels? Dog nails? Kids throwing stuff?

Basically any real-world examples you can share about the durability of your walnut floors would be really helpful!

I have walnut throughout my first floor including kitchen and bathroom. We installed about 6 months ago. I love it. However, we went with the "character" grade and satin finish and we wanted a distressed old look and there are definately some nicks, etc. but we dont mind it as we knew it going in and we are not careful with it. We have young boys and I wear high heels, etc. It doesnt dent like pine, but its not rock hard. I think the walnut graining really obscures a lot of the nicks anyway. If I were going for a very formal polished look, I would NEVER get walnut. But I love these floors.

Here is a link that might be useful: Amys kitchen and walnut floors

One last thing to add, I dont know what you mean by a wax finish, but we had an old fashioned wax finish on our old floors long ago and it was terrible for upkeep. There are of course hard wax finishes now which are different.

Did you get the floors? How do you like them? We have two dogs and two kids and I was hoping all the talk about walnut being a soft floor that scratches easily was all lies :) But I have found that it isn't.

The tung oil hasn't finished curing though so it should offer more protection in the coming months.

I don't regret our choice, but I'm not sure I'll put them upstairs when we get to that project in a few months.

Bump - I'm wondering how those walnut floors are doing? I'm about to get it for my kitchen/dining area and I know it's softer than oak, but I love the look. So what do you think after a year of daily use/abuse? Do they still look great? Thanks in advance for your advice!

Another bump! We are looking into walnut floors as well. I guess people are either too busy admiring their floors or don't want to say they were a bad idea. The first one I hope! I really love the look.

Any updates on the walnut floors?

" I guess people are either too busy admiring their floors or don't want to say they were a bad idea."

They are probably trying to figure out how to remove the dents without sanding.

Walnut is not all that hard as flooring woods go

We've had walnut floors in our dining room for about 5 years and family room for a year and a half. Love how it looks. Just a few coats of poly on it. We haven't had issues with denting or anything, but we have no pets or children, and we have felt pads on the bottom of all our furniture.

Here is a walnut picture to share. Love its timeless elegance. It is hard enough for residence usage.

This post was edited by UniqueWoodFloor on Wed, Mar 6, 13 at 23:42

bumping this thread up. I would love to hear more about walnut flooring...

I had site-finished walnut floors with a natural satin finish stain. I loved them the first day we moved in because they were beautiful, but I would never get them again. They dent and scratch so easily and show every spec of dust. I would sweep in the morning and they would look dirty again before lunch time. Also, we are not hard on our floors but they looked awful after just a few months of living there. There were little dents everywhere from high heels and scratches everywhere from pets. As a side note, I have had hardwood floors before (oak and hickory) and had no problem maintaining them and keeping them looking new. We had to have them re-finished before listing our house for sale because they looked so bad! They did look beautiful again after the refinishing, though. We chose not to live in our house while it was on the market just to keep the floors looking new! The hardwood floor finishers we received quotes from all said that walnut floors are very hard to site-finish because of the smooth grain they show everything.

Thank you, Liesl123. I appreciate it!

If you have children, grandchildren, pets, or wear shoes, don't do it.

We had Knotty Walnut with a satin finish installed throughout our entire house. We loved the look so much I shook off any durability issues because we have no pets and are typically careful and gentle with our floors. We are a few months in and I still love the look, and people do comment on how much they like them. Regarding durability, everything you are hearing is very very true. We had a flooring repair man in to fix some boards and simply resting his tools on the ground did more damage to other boards than the ones we were fixing! Dragging anything on the floor will leave permanent marks. I once dropped a hard cover book and the corner of the book dented the floor, same with a phone charger. All of that being said I like the way they look and have just given into the fact that in several years we will likely need to do some major renos on the flooring. Next time around I would probably try to fall in love with some oak floors.