When our house was built in 1952, they used red oak parquet throughout the LR, DR, halls and bedrooms. It can't be matched, and I can't afford to replace what's in the DR. I had new red oak (planks) laid in the K, back hall, FR. It butts up to the DR. I am hoping that the stain will tie the floors together. I asked on the flooring forum a few months ago, and many floor installers said that they installed non-matched flooring and it looked fine. My floor guy would have liked me to replace the parquet, and my daughter-in-law, a fine, but very opinionated interior designer is not happy that everything won't match. She's also not happy about some of our other choices with this kitchen, but oh, well, it's ours and I know what I want. Next week, the floor gets stained and sealed, and I'll let you know if it looks OK.

Thanks Sudiepav! I'd love to see it.

I told hubby we should just install 2 3/4 (which we found) and the size difference won't matter as long as they're both red oak. He has a discerning eye though and is better at visualizing. I don't want to make a mistake!

I'll also try posting in the Flooring forum.

We are sanding / staining Monday - installed new 2 1/4 inch red oak in kitchen and dining room. We included a 3 inch Brazilian cherry border in the dining room. We have existing parquet in an ajoining room - not sure if we are going to try and match or not. Parquet is also red oak, but stained kind of a golden oak color. We have cherry cabinets going in and I am thinking we will focus on a contrasting color (lighter) than the cherry rather than matching the ajoining floor. I will post some pics when we are done.

I installed brand new oak in my dining room (2 1/2 inch?) and had my random-width kitchen floor refinished with the same water-based polyurethane. I don't notice the difference in widths and think it looks fine.

Looking from the kitchen to the DR:

Looking from the DR to the kitchen:

Oh wow, that does look nice AnnKathryn. Did you go with unfinished floors for your living room, then sand down your kitchen floors, then stain them to match? If so, do you notice any difference in the spaces between each plank? I ask because one thing that our hardwood guy pointed out is that old floors (ours are 22 years old) have rivets so there are deep grooves between each plank, whereas the newer unfinished floors don't have any grooves and are completely smooth. I'm worried the difference in grooves will make them look different.

My kitchen and family room are completely open to each other, unlike your rooms where there is a doorway in-between.

That's beautiful, annkathryn, and we, like you, have those horizontal pieces between the floors (don't know their actual name) and I think that helps keep your eye from getting too matchy-matchy. At least it does mine!

Our plans show just how big the opening is from our kitchen to the family room. The family room resides to the left of the kitchen.

We're not super picky but it may help you to understand just how open the rooms are to each other and we don't want it to look like a mistake that the widths (and the grooves) are different from room to room.

{{!gwi}}

This is a VERY OLD photo when we had a banister dividing the two rooms, and we were still decorating the family room thus the paint samples on the wall. (Ugh, I shudder to look at it.) It gives you a sense of how big the opening is. It's the view from the kitchen to the fam room.

{{!gwi}}

There was no banister in this photo. Ignore that point. ;-)

Another point to add, since someone mentioned the transition piece which keeps it from feeling too "matchy matchy"...our hardwood runs parallel to the opening so we can't put a horizontal transition board between the rooms as it would run the same way as the rest of the wood. Any suggestions on how we could transition the floors between the two rooms? We don't want to run the hardwood the other way in the kitchen as that would just look odd, and we like the direction they run in in the family room.

Pecanpie (mmm...pie) - we are considering the 2 3/4 as we don't want to go thinner than 2 1/2 and there wasn't a huge visual difference between them, at least not based on the samples.

So you were able to find 2 1/2!! How long ago did you do your reno? Do you happen to know the name of the supplier?? I've heard that we can get them custom-cut but it will be more expenseive.

Have you tried googling it? I did a quick google search for "red oak" "2 1/2" and reclaimed, and there were several places that had reclaimed flooring in 2 1/2. I have no idea if they match, but you could try writing the places who do sell reclaimed wood.

Carla in Sac

Mirage flooring carries pre-finished 2 1/2 flooring. Grrreat!!

Redroze,
I'm just getting back online and seeing your questions, so I'll try to answer what I can. My new floor in the LR/DR was not pre-finished, it was all site-finished. I did put a pre-finished floor down in my office (no pics, sorry) because I work from home and didn't have time to be without my office for the week it would have taken to have floor sanded etc. The pre-finished does have a different feel to it than the site-finished. I wouldn't say it's grooved, just a more defined difference in between the individual planks. The office doesn't adjoin any other room, except the tiled hallway, so I didn't worry so much about the wood being different there.

I see from your pictures what you mean about running the planks the same way and wanting to be sure things don't look odd. One idea might be to take up some of your FR planks, like the first 12 or so, and then put them back down interwoven with the new planks. That way there's not a clear line in between the 2 rooms, but rather a more gradual blending.

Here's another couple of pictures, this time of my family room. The first one is a before shot of the hardwood floor + a rug-like carpet. The floor created a frame around the carpet. I had the carpet taken up and new hardwood put in where the carpet originally was, then everything sanded and refinished. You absolutely can't tell where the old wood was vs where the new started. In this case, the new is random width because it opens directly to the kitchen (as opposed to the LR/DR which is all the same width).

So, one house, all new site-finished floors in the LR & DR, all new pre-finished floor in the office, original/refinished in the kitchen, and half&half refinished + original in the family room. Boy did we have dust!

Hope this helps!

New:

I forgot to mention that there's no stain at all on the floor, just the clear polyurethane. I think it has darkened a little bit over time, but that might just be me...

Your pictures make me feel SO much better!! I'll show them to hubby as well. I don't see any difference at all.

Thanks for the explanation between the pre- and site-finished. Since we can only find 2 1/2 in the pre-, we will lay it then sand everything down together. I really like your idea about gradually interweaving them for a subtle transition. LOVE that idea actually. Thank you so much!

red, we did our reno 3 years ago.

A local outfit did the floors, no idea who their supplier was. Ours were site finished.

redoze,
I'm glad my pictures helped. It occurred to me that maybe one more angle would be useful. Remember I said there was a "frame" of wood around the family room carpet? This frame has a side that runs perpendicular to the kitchen, so here's a couple of photos that show the transition. The kitchen and the perpendicular part of the frame are the original floor, refinished. The center of the frame is what's new.

In the foreground is the older red oak 2 1/4 flooring. The new floor was site finished to match. One coat of the finish was tinted to help match the amber tone of the existing floor.