In a previous house - we had a similar set up - just a tiny little foyer has real hw. That was torn out & the engineered HWs were installed - there was no way to match the real hws. We were also already living in the house & didn't want to go thru the sanding/ staining/ sealing/ moving all the furniture out of the house - so engineered worked for us. They would move all the furniture over to one side of the room - install the hw's & then move the furniture on the new hw's - took a weekend!

I think there are some really nice looking engineered HW floors out there now!

Smiles:)

Thank you, I will go ahead with the plan, I was just worried if I should keep the real wood and cherish it as its REAL.

Don't landfill it, though. Habitat or some other organization may be able to use it.

I don't see a problem with keeping the wood floor. It is only 8 years old so it seems a shame to replace it. You could have it sanded and stained to match the new floor (probably wouldn't be exact.)
I think it would be attractive to have the foyer have a different look than the rest of the area. I should think it would save you quite a bit of money, too.

My foyer, DR and LR are different than the rest of the house. those areas had HW and I installed a different kind in the rest of the house. I didn't want to waste or pay to replace what was already there.

I tried to resize this, not sure if it worked.

postum, thats exactly what I was thinking about and was in a limbo, wasn't sure if it would look good or ppl would actually have diff kinds of wood on the same level.

boopadaboo's pic looks ok, so I have to try to visualize it and rethink.

Take away that solid wood from foyer and put everywhere quality engineered wood. You will not regret.

I am considering doing the samething ... what engineered hardwood are you considering using? There are sooo many!

I would save the real wood floor in the foyer, sand it down and attempt to match it. Not even a quality engineered floor ever looks like a tongue and groove real wood floor IMHO--with an engineered floor you always have that un-appealing V groove that screams factory made.

I respectfully disagree with Barbie. : ) I've had 3 different engineered hardwoods and no one has ever thought they were anything but solid wood. If you don't like the bevel there are some without. But I've seen plenty of solid wood floors with bevels, too, so I don't see this as an issue. Just personal preference. : )

And notice I didn't use "real" wood as a descriptive term. That's because engineered floors are real wood on the top with a plywood substrate. That's what makes them more stable and preferred by many than solid wood. They can also be refinished, contrary to what many believe. The key is to get a wood top layer that is thick enough to sand several times, if needed.

I can recommend Mannington, having used their eng. floors twice. The first time was 19 years ago before most people even knew about eng. floors. I had their random plank in my kitchen and entry. Loved it but replaced it when we did the entire downstairs in hickory from Garrison. I can not recommend it because I think the floors scratch too easily. I wish we had used the Mannington hickory but it looked a little too rustic. We have Mannington California plank, 3" oak, upstairs and it has been amazing, like the previous kitchen.

Good luck and be sure to get samples of any you like. Take them home and view them in the rooms you intend to have them installed, as light is different in homes vs showrooms. Also, make sure you can keep the samples so you can test them for scratching. Staining has never been an issue that I know of.

HTH! : )
Diana

Good question! It depends on what you have now and what you are going to get. Are they both the same width? Our one story house has solid 2.25" hardwoods in the foyer, family room, kitchen and back hallways. We would like to replace the carpet in the LR, DR and all BRs with hardwoods. Because we are living here and have two young children, we are thinking about ripping out the solid hardwoods and putting all engineered hardwoods in. I'm trying to decide if that's crazy or not!

What's the deal with the micro-bevel? Why is it there? One of the main reasons I chose having my hardwood floor installed and finished in place was because all the prefinished floors had the bevel. I really don't care for the bevel.

nancyr - as of now I just know that I want hardwood but I haven't started looking into which one. I know I like the very light colored planks, for some reason I feel the dark wood makes the room look dark, I may be wrong.