Online is the worst place to buy any flooring. Go to a real flooring store, and talk to some experts. Local mills often produce some of the best material with the lowest shipping costs, using local timber. Personally, if you want character wood, I'd suggest hickory or pecan over oak, as it's more rustic in appearance, with higher quality than trash oak that you find at most online retailers that sell "cabin" grade. In wood grading, there is no such thing. You've got clear, select, #1, and #2, and the trash that's left over that sometimes gets burned for fuel or sold as cabin grade.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wood floor grades from THE experts

I agree with PPs - your best bet is going to be a local mill. Also, regarding grades, sometimes "character grade" can be a mix of all grades. Mostly they refer to it around here as "character and better" meaning you get some top grade, mostly character.

Also, I'd look into how much expansion and contraction those 7 and 8" boards actually go through - you might end up with some gaps if they move at a different rate than the other narrower boards. I'm currently contemplating 5", 4", and 2" hickory for our house and this is a concern of mine. i haven't found an answer yet but its something to be considered.

I will say for character grade oak - it's wonderful and warm but veeeery busy so you should consider that when choosing your other finishes. Regular hickory is even worse - it's almost calico looking once its laid down. We have 3" character grade red oak in our current house and it looks gorgeous and rustic, but I'm already kind of tired of it and I'm worried it'll look dated in another 10 years (I have the same concern with all the grey staining happening these days). Also, with all of the other texture we picked in our cabinets backsplash furnishings, etc., the house feels a little schizophrenic. Unfortunately I had to do all this site unseen, so we didn't realize how everything would look together. Word to the wise.

Our next place is going to be variable width blond (clear grade - no heartwood) hickory which I'm hoping will give us the light, uniform appearance we're going for in the Scandinavian/modern style. We're doing Pallman's magic oil which I think will give it a golden appearance over time which will match the existing honey maple cabinetry in the rest of the house.

If you do go with character grade, keep a close eye on which boards your installer is using. We had to replace a couple of them because the knots broke out.

Anyway - good luck on your choice!

Thank you all so much for chiming in! Our floors will be the only visual "texture" in most of our house; white cabinets, black doors, drywall returns, that kind of vibe. The knots breaking out is really helpful to know about. Maybe it's a sign I should go with the select grade. It's the only one available in every board size I want, but I was afraid it would look too homogenized.
Is that a photo of your home, Swentastic? It doesn't look busy to me at all! Good luck with your choices. Hickory is beautiful in the right applications.
PS- am I reading correctly, then, that mixing grades is okay?

I'm no expert but I would think mixing grades would be OK - you'd just want to make sure they were all milled to the same spec otherwise your installer might have a hell of a time getting them to fit together properly.

Black doors eh? I'd love to see that when its finished. I'm intrigued!

This is our house for at least another month - we really have loved living here and the rehab was fun but I get bored quickly and tend to move on. We've got it under contract right now so hopefully the next owners love it as much as we have.

Can't wait to see your finished project!

Thinking now that we will just go with all 8' boards in the european character oak. We have mixed cedar widths outside, so we thought about doing the same look inside, but now I'm thinking that might be too much of a good thing.

Swentastic, is the photo above your character oak? Is it busier in person? It looks relatively sedate on my monitor.

I can't wait to see that, sounds gorgeous!

Yes these are character grade red oak - pic doesn't do it justice. Here's one from right after it was finished before we moves in. It's definitely faded some since but still very red underneath the rugs.

We'll be doing white oak, so red shouldn't be part of the equation, but I'll admit some nervousness about how busy the character grade is. I think with the greyed-down oil finish it shouldn't be too much. I need some rusticity to balance out the contemporary elements anyway.

Swentastic, how far along are you on your next place?

Haha when I posted that pic on my phone it showed right side up - I don't know how to fix it!

The greyed down oil finish on white oak will be gorgeous - esp if you're going with the larger width boards I don't think it'll look too busy. I can't wait to see it done!

Our next place has been gutted and is now slowly going back together. HVAC is being installed this week which means hopefully the floors can be dropped off next week. Unfortunately most everything else has to wait until the floors are down.

Have you guys broken ground on the new place? When will you be finished?

First floor decking finished today. Walls starting tomorrow- Amish crew and they work like lightning! Hoping another 5 months or so.