I have several hardwoods in the house. The kitchen dining room level is gunstock oak. The living room is maple and walnut, and the stairs linking all of the levels is a mix of the gunstock with maple risers. I did this to link the two color choices. The landings are the darker wood, which transitions well into the other rooms. the master bed/closet is all done in a beautiful honey colored bamboo (which is really nice on the feet) and the family level and DS's room (should he ever move out of our closet) is going to be tigerwood, which is impervious to damage from thomas the train :)

transitions are key. don't end one room without a clean finish between rooms from wood too wood and you'll be fine. personally, i really enjoy the look. if you wander through many older homes you'll see alot of this type of thing :)

Interesting igloo, this is encouraging.

When you talk about having a clean finish and transition, what do you mean? What's a good way to transition from one wood to another? Trim pieces? Something else?

I saw different hardwoods done very cool in a few books. In one it was so they could have an expensive species they liked even though they couldn't afford it in the whole house. I like it when there is a bit of a border of the main wood around the smaller section. Or maybe a border or inlay of a third type or combo of the two dividing them.

I think this depends (a little bit) on your personality. I'm a nut, so the fact that my first and second floor are different woods bugs me a little bit every time I walk down the stairs. I have tried to embrace it and finished the newels/banister is yet another wood tone to play up the "antiqueyness" of the house.

If you think you'll be fine with it, it would be best to select a wood that isn't too close to your old stuff. Clashing would be bad.

gee, I wouldn't do it which is why we are having tile. DH didn't want to get all the floors refinished at once and having two different woods--one new & the rest not so nice--wouldn't sit right with us.

I ended up with different hdwds by accident. 4 years ago I installed a light/natural maple in the rest of the downstairs, ignoring the kitchen/FR because I knew I would remodel some day. I picked natural maple cabs for the kitchen and tried to convince myself that I would be happy with cheap HD tile. Turned out I couldn't put in tile, which gave me an excuse for hdwd. In the meantime, my natural maple color had been discontinued (which was probably a good thing because I didn't want matching cabs/floor). So I went to the same line's next deeper shade, which was a warm caramel hdwd, which just happens to match the caramel glaze on my maple cabs. Serendipity! Both have the same width planks and style of distressing, so I tell myself that is the continuity/transition.

We have all heart pine floors in our house. For everything, except the kitchen, they are sanded and poly'd. In the kitchen, I will stain 18" squares, on the diagonal, in blue and cream. My designer told me I will need to do a strip of something which contrasts with both floors. She thought the strip should be as thick as the doorway - about 5 inches with trim. We haven't decided what this inlaid strip will look like yet.

i'm on bedrest or i'd whip over and take a few pics, but let me try to explain. in the living room, the maple floor has a walnut inlay about an inch wide that outlines the wood. the inlay stops the wood floor from running right off into the stairs by providing a frame of sorts to the room. the same is done on my landing to the master suite (the frame) and then in the door specifically we have one strip of wood running the same direction as the door, and from there the rest of the floor radiates out on a diagnal (pointing to the lake). THE SAme (stupid arm hits the cap button) will happen in the family room...with a wood strip stopping one wood and then the other wood will run at a different angle to the landing. if instead you tried to just run the exact same wood in the same direction as the other wood in your home...well it's akward (AND i've seen it more than once this way).

i personally find having the same wood throughout the entire house gets boring. i want my rooms and home to have destinct personalities, but personalities which flow well :) hopefully i've acheived that by keeping the tones comfortable with each other. if not,maybe the magazine folks will run out screaming when they come to shoot (patient suckers i'll say!) heh heh

It really makes sense to have a different wood in the kit. It is the room that will wear the most. A different one makes it possible to just refinish the kit. When they all match, to keep them matching you would have to redo all floors. My nephew did what igloo did, different in many rooms and it looks great. I believe he used same height door jams at doorways. Actually just a piece of the flooring the width of the doorway for a clean break.

Wow, thanks for all the helpful perspectives. It doesn't seem impossible then.

That's a great point eandhl about being able to refinish the kitchen alone.

Igloo, thanks for the description of the transitions. I get it, kinda! (And hope you are ok on bedrest!)

The kitchen is a separate room, although it has 3 doors off it - one to hall, one to dining room and one to back patio. It's sort of tucked away at the back of the house.

I wonder how easy it is to flip from tile to hardwood or vice versa. If we install one then hate it, can you rip out and put in the other without cabinet damage?!

We have a light cherry stained oak in our dining and foyer which we put in when we built the house. We just installed brazilian cherry in our kitchen, I was a little leary but it looks great. In fact, we are going to do the same thing in our new build. I want a reclaimed hardwood in my kitchen but will put a handscraped in the rest of the house. I'd love to have reclaimed throughout but WOW expensive!

I was in the same boat as you Tartanhabit. We have red oak floors throughout our entire main floor that are stained a golden colour. We wanted to replace our kitchen with hardwood but the existing golden colour would not work with our granite. We took a big leap and decided to refinish all our hardwood (old and new) so they are all matched.

I personally love the consistency of one hardwood flooring throughout, but I'm sure it can be done well with the right transitions. It also depends on your home layout.