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OK to do wide plank in kitchen if rest of house not?

15 years ago

We have wood floors throughout the house. The planks are standard, a little over 2" in width. Would it look weird if we do wide plank in the kitchen? Or is it OK to mix?

Again, thanks.

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Comments (15)

bkinsey
15 years ago
We are doing wide plank in our kitchen (if you consider 5" wide plank), and the other wood floors in the house are also standard 2" or so. So, I think it is ok. But I don't have a room that butts up to the kitchen that has wood floors, so I don't really know if that is an answer or not. But, I am sure that I have seen that in other houses and it has not come off as weird.
luvnlife_09
15 years ago
Our new wood floors were installed yesterday and being sanded and stained today,. We had oak 2 1/4" in the livingroom that we're leaving (It is being sanded and restained), and then we've gutted the kitchen and dining area and are having 3,4, and 5" hickory in there. I will add that this is all one big open area with the LR! If it looks ridiculous, it's too late!! We are having 4th generation hardwood floor layers--friends of the family do this...I trust their judgement :) They won't be living here, but will visit often enough to have to look at it over and over again! Hoping I love it!!
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Your best bet is if you can keep the temperature and humidity at a constant level. This may be difficult at times, such as the winter when you are running the heat. Even still as the wood ages it will certainly swell and contract. That is one benefit of using Reclaimed Wood since it has usually done whatever it's gonna do by the time it is installed. Here is a link that might be useful: Reclaimed Wood
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I also have them, and mine are 160+ years old, and original to my structure. A couple of thoughts: For many years (in the grand scheme of things probably half, or more, of the life of these floors) they were covered with floor cloths of one sort or an other, so it's hard to judge how they would look if they were exposed continuously to the kind of bare floor use that is the modern fashion. Another thing to think about is whether the wide boards you're thinking of are actually old growth boards or more modern boards. Old wood (harvested more than 150 years ago) is much denser than most wood available today because the crop cycles on modern forestry are much shorter. If you are using reclaimed boards, this may or may not be a factor, depending on when the boards were harvested. Another thing to think about is what if anything the effect of a floor finish might have for you. You asked about scratching ..... except for a dog really clawing at the floors you are really asking about potential damage to the finish, not the boards. Modern finishes (I'm thinking of the varieties of polyurethane) may be damaged by dog paws and walking, no matter what kind of wood. (I recently owned a house with modern strip oak, covered with a fine quality modern finish and the dog in that house damaged the floors at the doorways. OTOH, I have dogs and cats in my farm house, with bare, unfinished old floors and see no damage.) Some of us with old wide board pine have *no* finish on our floors out of choice. This probably looked bad fora period when the floors were new, but now, the wood has acquired a patina and a hardness so it doesn't show damage like like a new floor would. If you bought old wood that was re-finished as part of the salvage operation, you would have essentially newly finished wood, with all it's pitfalls and potential for visible damage. I just wanted you to know that it's hard to compare old, aged-in-placed, floors with newly created floors, even if made from reclaimed wood. A middle ground of floor finishes for old wood (between bare and poly) would be treating it with a pure tung oil finish, with or without a wax top coat. The tung oil oxidizes and provides a protection that is renewable; the wax protects the tung oil and lengthens the time between renewals. Both can be reapplied in worn areas without doing the whole floor. Both are traditional practices, with long history of use. Tung oil has it's detractors, because it is stinky to apply and, some say, environmentally bad to live with. (Frankly, I find poly awful to live with from an outgassing point of view, as well.) The one uncontested catch with both (and particularly so with wax) is that if you apply them, you can not then switch to a poly product without resanding the floor to bare wood. And some people say, even small vestiges of wax in the subsurface pores and cracks will interfere with good poly seal, forever. My choice would be to go with tung and a wax top coat, if I was inclined to finish my floors. If you're buying reclaimed wood, they may (or may not, I've seen them both ways), come prefinished with a poly seal, so your finish choice would be made for you.
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I agree that your best option is to find an installer who will install new Douglas-fir and then finish it to come as close as possible to your other floors. When it's brand new, it will look different - but then it will darken as it ages. My 1920 bungalow also has Doug-fir floors throughout the first story. I had to replace 3 planks in the living room a few years ago but didn't want to replace the entire floor. Those 3 new planks stood out (brighter) than the rest of the floor for about 2-3 years before they darkened to match the rest of the floor. (I refinished the entire floor at the same time I replaced those planks.) In my kitchen, the fir was shot (like in yours), and like you, I didn't want cold, hard tile. However, my situation was different because we already had underfloor radiant heat, so wood (especially fir) was not the best option. We ended up installing LVT in a warm color scheme that complements the fir in the rest of the house. It's soft, warm, and durable - I have no regrets.
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luvnlife_09
15 years ago
Forgot to add that the wood in these two areas will run perpendicular to each other.
gailrolfe
15 years ago
ebse, we have a similar situation as luvnlife. The original dining room floors are the standard 2 1/4" and the new kitchen, which runs perpendicularly into the dining room, is mixed 3, 4 and 5 inch plank, all stained the same color. I've got some pictures of it and as soon as I can get to the other computer, I'll send upload them so you can visualize it. I was originally very worried about it as well but it looks great.
eandhl
15 years ago
We did 12 - 20 inch throughout our house and just 12 in the kit. It looks fine.
ebse
Original Author
15 years ago
Great, so it sounds like that is a yes!

I would definitely love to see some pictures. I'm having trouble picturing what 3, 4 and 5 mixed looks like?
melanie1422
15 years ago
My house is all 2" oak except the kitchen, which is 4" pine. That's the way it was made, so I don't see why you couldn't do it with your new floors. Lots of old houses had one type of wood in the entertaining part of the house, and another type in the working areas and bedrooms.
luvnlife_09
15 years ago
Here's a pic of our newly finished floors--Love them!!
They all stained the same, but as you can see, the oak takes the stain much more! It's just what we were hoping for to make the two rooms different.
{{!gwi}}
luvnlife_09
15 years ago
Here's another that maybe shows the colors better/
{{!gwi}}
crazyhouse6
15 years ago
I love the mixed width floors, but think you'd be fine with any width.

Luvnlife - Beautiful floors!!!
susanlynn2012
15 years ago
Luvnlife, I think the two floors look great next to each other. I also love the Hickory floors! What stain did you use on both the Hickory Floors and on the Oak Floors? Thanks for reminding me that I also like Hickory Floors and maybe I should be looking into that also.
ebse
Original Author
15 years ago
Wow, they really are beautiful.

We also have to make the choice to do quatersawn or regular (?) and what width we want the planks.

Kitchens see to require about 101 decisions.
luvnlife_09
15 years ago
Thanks!! I love them too--wish we could have gone for replacing all the floors to hickory, but there was just too much good oak to rip it all out and throw it away!
It hard to answer the stain question....I am having maple cabinets with a cherry stain, so I wanted a contrast. Well, I don't think I got what I was hoping for there, but our friends doing the floor said I would like the lighter natural stain for a couple years and then it would turn too yellow. So we started experimenting with colors and came up with this. It's about 1/2 "Provincial" and the other 1/2 is divided between neutral and cherry to get a red hint helping us to get in the same color family as the cabs. It is the same stain on both floors--but looks very different. Now I love the floors, but am having angst about the cabs.... Always obsessing about something!! :(
Hope I didn't hijack the thread too much.....
Ebse: You can't go wrong. Quartersawn was suggested to us, (and it is beautiful!!) but when the decision was made our oak floors looked so yukky that I wanted nothing to do with oak of any sort!! Hence the hickory that DH picked out for the floor and the maple cabs I picked out.
101 decisions??? Oh yeah...today we pick granite and lights...Maybe THEN I'll be able to get a paint color I like...The walls look like bad quilts right now!!
ebse
Original Author
15 years ago
luvnlife, if you can pick granite AND lights in ONE day, I'm very impressed!

I spent a week deciding whether to do prefinished white window or paint to match the cabinets. It took another week to decide what hardware color for the windows.

It will be 2011 before we make progress. Only problem is, cabinets will be in in 6 weeks! I gotta get moving...
luvnlife_09
15 years ago
Well, yeah....our perimeter cabs are done and due in on Mon. Guess who hasn't picked out what to do for the island--white, black or same as cabs....????This one is keeping me up nights!! I figure if i go and fall in love with some granite, it will force a decision. i'm definitely holding up my own project!! BTW, the SINK is in the island, so I really do need to hop on this!! (the cabs are custom made by a reeeeally patient friend!!)
Good luck with the floors!!!

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