I just had hickory engineered flooring installed - I love it and out of the whole area - probably about 900 square feet there are only two boards that I would call "zebra"ish. I love the look of it and I like the fact that it isn't consistent.

YOu have to decide whether it would bothered you seeing dings and dents in a wood that you obviously prefer. Or else just being very careful about not dropping things in the kitchen :)

How about ordering a bit extra of the hickory so you can pick through the boards a bit to keep the wilder ones out? The bit of extra expense might be a better compromise than spending for something that won't hold up.

We put in random width 10 - 20 inch plank pine floors. Put an oil finish on them. Not one with any polymerizing agent in it. (land ark oil finish which is all natural)
I knew going in I would get scratches and dents and they would bother me in the beginning but eventually look like an aged floor. I have had a couple deep scratches and just rubbed a tiny bit of the land ark in. I have enough coats of the L Ark that a dent stays the same color. Been here two years and I still haven't gotten enough to look aged.
I have seen 10 yr old wide pine with much more activity that we have and the floors have a beautiful patina. Very easy to repair any damage if you get through the oil.

We put down an engineered birch floor in our last house. Even before the installers laid it down I saw very long scratches- actually dents. I thought it was the tool they were using, but it turned out to be my little dog. It was a pretty floor, but I wouldn't do it again, because it bugs me. We moved a bit after that so I don't know how it held up in the long run.

We put natural hickory in 5 in width in our entire first floor before we remodeled. The sample boards do not show any of the variation. Yes, it is essentially two colors, but we think it is beautiful, and if you are going to spend that much money on real wood floors, I think they should look like real wood. Out of our entire remodel, I love my floors the most. Please note though, that no wood floor is bullet proof. We dropped an empty wine bottle on them the first week, and while the glass didn't break, there is an imprint of the bottom of the bottle. I will also say that the pattern in the wood is VERY forgiving on showing scratches from the dogs, etc.

I have had yellow pine floors twice, both times stained dark. The first time was in a house with me and my two brothers. They held up great. The second is in my current apartment with my wife and three small children. My floors are a hot mess. The lack of rugs, constant moving of furniture (to make room for kid stuff) and well toddlers are all tough on the floor and with the stain, they really show it. I think it would be okay in a low traffic area, or in a house of adults who are mindful of not dinging up the floors, but with kids or pets, I would not recommend pine / anything softer than oak.

We put 7 inch plank natural hickory in our new construction home. So far, I love them, but that is my taste. I love the variation and I love that they are hard, as woods go, and the variation is forgiving when it comes to crumbs when I don't get it swept! :) Granted, I haven't lived with it, but so far, this is the best part of the house for me. My sis put walnut in her house and she hates the floors b/c they dent/scratch and they are darker so they show alot. You have to decide what is most important to you.
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Shellyk, what brand is your hickory floor? Is it solid or engineered? Is that finished, and if so, was it prefinished or site-finished?

If we could find hickory like that, maybe it would be workable. Yours looks good!

we have 3 1/4" natural grade Canadian birch, prefinished, (not red birch) and I love it. I know when I sold hardwood flooring it was still considered a hardwood on the Janka test (as opposed to pine or fir, mmmmmm.....fir.....) We have a ton of marks but not many deep ones and only a handful through the finish. It's been down for 6 years with a 6 year old, 3 year old and a 90 pound greyhound.

Two of the installers I worked with also had birch in their family homes and loved it. The variation hides a ton of sins. New people who come to my home always comment on how beautiful they are. I had a variegated pre-finished maple in my last home, which is much harder on the Janka test but has a similar fine grain--only slightly less and after two years I can honestly say the marking was comparable.

If you want a light floor that is a harder species, also consider Ash---it makes a beautiful floor, it's quite forgiving of temp/humidity variations and it's slightly more pronounced grain also makes it camo-friendly. Both my parents and my uncle have it and love it. It also takes stain well if you ever want to change it up in the future.

Good luck!

And an fyi---smaller dogs often mark a floor as much or more than a mellow or older large dog. We used to get callbacks for scratched areas in front of picture windows where little dogs would get all excited ;) Our own 25 pounder did more rather innocent damage than our 90 pound-hound.

mikomum, so I have to ask what brand your floor is?

From my shopping around, I've learned that Mirage allegedly has the hardest birch flooring because they harvest the trees from the northern states verses the southern states where other birches are harvested. Compared to Kentwood, I have to say it definately is harder. Kentwood dents with a fingernail - Mirage doesn't.

If it hold true that the further north the birch is grown, the harder it will be, then I am definately interested in Canadian grown! And 3 1/4 is a perfect size for us!

If you are looking for color uniformity, ash is a good choice as is oak.

When you talk about Homerwood, all they have is character grade flooring - meaning it has the most grain variation, knots, and holes. You can get more uniformity by choosing a better grade of flooring to start with.

If you get a character grade of ash, maple or oak, it will have less variation that hickory, but the toughness you'd like.

PS. remember that in the photo above, the floor doesn't have finish applied yet, the darker areas will turn dark brown.

If you want a hard but uniform floor, have you considered rift sawn oak? It has none of the usual pattern associated with oak. The grain is very straight. Quartersawn is also very "un-oak" looking, with interesting "rays" running across the grain. Hurst Hardwoodss carries them both. The rift and quartered is normally mixed within a bundle, but you can pay an up-charge to get just rift or just quartered.

I have reclaimed heart pine which is soft but is one of those woods that you expect to get dinged up and still maintain its character. We absolutely love ours!

We've scoured the oaks - red oak downright clashes with the cabinetry and white oak's hues pull a green undertone out of the cabinets (which then makes the rust colors in the granite jarring). I will look into rift cut or quartersawn through Hurst.

There is something about the hickory's colors that melds very well with the cabinets (maybe the yellow tones?), that no other wood brings except birch as the cabinets are birch.

I actually love the variation in wood, but if the variation scale is 0 (no variation) to 100 (as much variation as possible, almost as much as black vs. white), I want a 60 or so. Hickory is definately 100. If we do go with hickory, we are going to buy about 400 sq ft extra to throw out some of the boards. But we haven't exactly found an economical hickory either. The better looking it is, the more expensive it is too.

I love the look of hickory myself, but have never lived with it, so no help there.

Currently have heart pine through my entire house, and it is a mess--dings, scratches, divots from my kids rocking back on chair legs--but they are 137 years old (the floors, not the kids), so what can I do but shrug and marvel that we haven't fallen through them yet (a la The Money Pit)?

Seems like it's similar to the soapstone arguments you read here all the time--do you need things to remain close to perfect/brand new to be happy, or do you enjoy seeing evidence of a life lived wherever you turn (even if it's a little messy/broken/torn up)?

The rocking on the chair legs has definitely taken a toll on my site finished oak floors. Somehow I didn't see that one coming. However, I have an open floor plan and like all the flooring to be the same, so I'm not sure I would choose any differently if I had to do it over again. I might put down a rug right from the beginning, but then that would create another set of problems.

Totally Confused

eandhl - do you have photos of your floors? I'm interested to see super-wide planks.

OP -- I will check with my DH. He found the floors at an online wholesaler and they have been fantastic to work with as well as the least expensive price that we found.

These floors will be site finished with a water-based finish so they won't look too much different than they look now. We ordered extra so that if there were "wild" boards we didn't want to use, we wouldn't have to. I believe he got it for $3/sq ft so at that price, we were fine with ordering extra. Some of the other boards that we thought were just ok, we put in closets, pantry, etc...

Let me know if you would like the details and I can get them from DH.

Five years ago I installed select red birch flooring throughout the entire house (except foyer, bathrooms & laundry). It was finished on site, and I cannot count the number of compliments I've received on this flooring in the intervening years. People love its warmth, the richness of the wood grain, etc.

And I love it as much today as when it was first installed. Does it dent? Yes. Is it a big deal? No.....no one knows those dents (largely in the kitchen) are there, except me, and I've gotten to the point where I never notice them.

The flooring looks as lovely today as when it was freshly finished. My recommendation is that you not be overly concerned on how much your flooring will dent....It's the overall appearance that will affect you on a daily basis.

I installed Mirage brand yellow birch, select, natural (no stain) site finished floors about a year ago. So far they've held up pretty well, and we are NOT a gentle folk with them. There are some dents where furniture was moved around during the reno, but mostly it's surface scratches in the poly that are showing up. The scratches bug me more than the dents because dirt gets in them and then they're visible, where the dents you don't see unless the lighting is just right. So, if I were to do it again I'd still go for the Birch, but I'd probably stain it a slightly darker colour so the scratches aren't quite as visible. It's a pretty light floor overall.

I still have 100 yo Douglas Fir floors that scratch and dent if you look at them wrong (which I absolutely love), but the scratches aren't so visible because the floor is darker, which makes the difference for me.

I say get whatever makes you swoon. There was something about the birch that my husband lusted after. The graining and neat iridescent looking spots sold him, and eventually me too. If you get those pangs over either of your flooring choices, just go for it. Just maybe consider a medium stain on those birch floors if you're like me and scratches will bug you.

So I think we decided because the price, the look, and timeline are perfect. (We could pick up the wood tomorrow!) It's a Kentwood birch that either has a very, very light stain on it or else it's a different variety because the color is a little darker than the birch in any other line including the other birch in their own line....this one is called country birch.

It's also quite soft - noticeably softer than Mirage's birch - but it's also over $1/sq ft cheaper. At the price, if we have to rip it out in 3 years, we will have gotten our money's worth.

I feel good about it cause the hickory dents too so this will be a good test to see how our family can actually handle hardwood floors.

{{!gwi}}

that looks really pretty!

I hope the install goes smoothly.

sorry for not getting back on this thread. It sounds like you have made your choice but I'll answer anyway: The floor we have is the Model brand, also out of Quebec (like Mirage) Model and Mirage are head to head in competition here, with Mirage being a larger company with more advertising. Having no vested interest any longer I would STILL say they are indistinguishable. If you did find a local distributor of Model it would likely be within 50 cents of Mirage. HTH. :)

Mikomum, no worries. We did decide. We have 38 boxes sitting in our living room acclimating right now :-). But thank you for getting back to me. I have never heard of Model, but it's nice to know they are out there for the harder birch varieties.

I would always go with the hardest wood, in your case the hickory.