midcentury modern flooring options - I need help!
Hey there! So, I'm trying to come up with a plan for the flooring in my house. In the 3+ years I've lived here, I've been going round and round in my head on options, and keep hitting a wall. I'm hoping the brilliant minds here will have some ideas!
Here's the scoop: the house is a 1958 split level with some mid-century roots. It isn't architect-designed or significant in any way, but I love MCM design and want to play up the mid-century features that it does have. I also want the changes we make to be period-appropriate to the home. We are the third owners, and the owners before us added a lot of colonial details that we are slowly trying to undo. They also put a large addition on to the back of the house - they added a breakfast room, extended the family room, and added a master bedroom.
Here is the floorplan of the main section of the house:
There are steps from the breakfast room down to the family room. Here is the floorplan for that:
Here's the plan for the back view of the house, showing how the spaces relate to each other:
(That's the family room on the lowest floor shown, steps up to the breakfast room, then two steps up to the kitchen. The master bedroom is above the family room.)
My goal is to have the flooring throughout the house be cohesive, and to not use too many different materials. With that said, here's what I'm currently working with:
The entry area, kitchen, and breakfast room currently have a prefinished laminated oak flooring that has been damaged in several areas and needs to be replaced. Here's the breakfast room, showing the flooring:
The living room and dining room are carpeted. There is plywood subfloor under the carpet - NO existing hardwoods. I'm told that wall-to-wall carpet was original to the house in the LR/DR and all the bedrooms, and all the evidence I've seen points to that being true.
This is the living room and entry area, taken before we had the front door and front window replaced:
The "existing den" area of the family room has fabulous flagstone that we found underneath carpet and a layer of floor leveler. And the "new family room" side of the room has wall-to-wall carpet that we replaced when we moved in.
This is taken standing near the steps from the breakfast room, looking into the "existing den". The door on the left is the main door we use to come and go. The doorknob you see on the extreme right of the photo leads to the garage.
This is taken standing near the patio door that we use to come and go, looking into the family room. The railing is where the breakfast room is.
And here's one more, showing how the spaces relate. Also, you can see that we have a woodstove, which we love using in the winter. (Yes, the colonial-style railing is a glaring misstep - that's another project I've been mentally dithering over. It'll probably get done at the same time we do the breakfast room flooring.)
If you've gotten this far and are still following me, THANK YOU!
Now that I've outlined what we have, I hope that helps set the stage for figuring out the solution. We are not doing a full renovation at one time, so whatever plan I come up with will be implemented over time, as we have the funds to do updates. I imagine doing them in the following chunks:
- breakfast room flooring plus update to the woodstove area & railing.
- entry and kitchen flooring whenever we renovate the kitchen - that's another whole post (or 80!). I am planning to use walnut cabinets - or possibly white. Or some combination of the two. Renovating the kitchen is probably 5 years away, realistically.
- Living room & dining room will depend on what we choose to put in there. If we use the same flooring as are in the entry and kitchen, we'll do it all at the same time. If not, we can do it whenever. I'm open to carpet, but I'm also open to something else.
My thoughts:
- I don't want to have too many different materials. Simplicity is my friend.
- I don't want a super hard (i.e. stone) floor in the kitchen. Interestingly, I found that the kitchen and entry originally had a mosaic porcelain tile floor in shades of hideous browns and beiges. I have scoured the internet looking for examples of this tile in kitchen floors, but have largely come up empty. I love the idea (conceptually, at least) of redoing the flooring there with what was there originally - although I'd use different colors. But then I think that there must be a reason no one uses 1" mosaic tile in kitchens and entries...
- I've considered the following flooring options - cork for the kitchen and entry, or for the whole first floor. Site-finished white oak that I would leave unstained.
- I'm already planning to extend the flagstone across the back of the family room to create a new hearth area for the woodstove. I want to remove all the brick, both on the wall and floor, and extend the flagstone all the way across, like so:
It just occurred to me that I could extend the flagstone further - up the stairs, and into the breakfast room. Thoughts on this? If I did it, I'd want to explore adding under floor heating, as I want it to be comfortable during the winter.
Um....I think I'm running out of steam. Is this all making sense? I guess here's the overarching question: If this were your house, how would you do the flooring throughout the house so that it was cohesive, period-appropriate, and functional?
Thank you for taking the time to read all this. I truly appreciate the help, and I'm open to all suggestions. I'll be back frequently to check in and answer questions and participate:)
Comments (20)
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emilymch
8 years agoemilymch
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Robo, does it help to say that we're in zone 7 - in the DC area? It's a pretty 4-season area, with hot, sticky summers. I don't think of it as a "colder climate", although at the current moment under 25" of snow, it seems pretty chilly! I had posted a while back (And if I can find the thread I need to update with new photos) about stairs to the very lowest level of the house. They are the same flagstone, and we just had one repaired. Here they are post-repair, but still desperately in need of a good cleaning (with bonus curious dog!):
jlc712
8 years agoI'd vote for cork, with a second choice of hardwood, and do it everywhere, with some soft shag rugs. Maybe slate in the entry. I do really like Marmoleum, but I think you ought to do the whole main floor in the same material. Your flagstone floors are really nice!
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louislinus
8 years agoemilymch
8 years agoemilymch
8 years agolouislinus
8 years ago
awm03
8 years agoemilymch
8 years agoawm, thank you! Our house isn't Architectually Important or
anything, but I really love it. And I totally agree about
split-levels. They get a bad rap, but when they're done right, they're
very interesting. I'm so thankful that the previous owners did such a
nice job on the addition - it really works with the flow of the house in
a very seamless way. Although the cosmetic details aren't my thing,
the overall flow really enhances the house.So it sounds like
the consensus is to not do flagstone in the breakfast room, and to use
the same flooring in the LR/DR, kitchen, entry and breakfast room -
perhaps with the exception of a stone area in the entry.Any
votes for trying to recreate the original flooring in the kitchen and
entry - a mosaic tile? These are the original tiles that I've dug out from under the edges of the existing flooring. (yes, I go on "fact-finding" missions in my own house. I think of it as domestic archaeology!):
To be clear - I wouldn't do the same colors - I'd use a mosaic tile but in a different colorway. I'm pretty sure I don't want to do this, but the purist in me thinks it could be interesting. Thoughts? Too weird? Too impractical?
nosoccermom
8 years ago
Karin Canazzi
7 years agolast modified: 7 years ago
Annette Holbrook(z7a)
7 years ago
robo (z6a)