My rift and quartered was supposed to be 60-70% rift and the rest quartered. I have under 10% quartered, which doesn't bother me -- I would have ordered all rift, but R & Q was significantly cheaper. What I didn't like was that there is a lot of flat sawn appearance. The boards may show some rift, but some boards show a lot more cathedral than rift. Also, there were a significant number of shorts under the 12" minimum, quite a number of boards discarded for bad milling, etc. I had ordered 10% more than my installer would normally order (so I could be picky), but had to order even more, and still had to use boards that should have been used for kindling wood. My service/delivery/etc. from Hurst Hardwoods was fine, but I should have paid another $1.40/sq ft and bought the material locally.

Those do look like oak. However, if you replace them, the two main issues are: 1) if they are tongue and groove boards, it is going to be a hassle to remove them without doing damage to adjacent boards; and 2) getting a finish to match. Are those boards really rotted, or just discolored from water exposure? This post was edited by kudzu9 on Sat, Aug 16, 14 at 4:06

I have this same problem. The kitchen has a walkpath adjacent to it which leads to garage and front lobby and basement stairs. We call it the "kitchen hall." DH does auto restoration and both of us are gardeners. Auto garage substances, garden dirt, and Labrador paws all create mess inside the house here and it needs to be stopped before we enter kitchen hall or balance of house. Deep into the project, I wanted the entire walkpath alongside kitchen to be tile and only the inside of the kitchen addition to be wood. This would have put stools at peninsula on a tile floor too--no fear of scratches! But...we ended up putting tile into the kitchen hall only as far as the desk unit which faces the basement stair area. Beyond this is the peninsula stool area, floor done in oak. We cut off the tiles in a line across the walkpath and put a horizontal piece of oak along the straight edge of the cut tiles perpendicular to the walkpath and then the new oak flooring runs parallel to the peninsula and walkpath and perpendicular to the oak divider. We wanted to downplay the transition so the oak board is not decorative. We did same at junction between tile and other floors, which are oak--a perpendicular piece of gorgeous oak that runs across side to side now fills a former outside door threshold. Same for top of stairway and entrance to dining room. Good looking but no ta-dah to call attention to itself. I have put Ikea stick-on felt bumpers at bottom of all table legs and stool legs which sit on the oak floor and so far it's worked (11 months) but I have to be diligent in knocking sand and such out of the felt when it accumulates there. Despite 3 rugs which lie between the front door and the working kitchen, there is a trail of dirt within the kitchen right now--I've been gardening. Gotta reassure myself that this is not a sign of anything bad, it's just how life will be when there's no formal front door and when real people and a dog live here. We shake rugs frequently and I sweep frequently but life goes on. The working kitchen part of the floor is oak--easier on feet than tile is and there is no ht or texture difference in threshold at the junction of kitchen hall and dining room with another oak floor--better for when I carry plates and trays past the peninsula and into the dining room than if the floor change were there. Sorry I don't have photos. Here's the desk area...imagine the junction just to right of desk. Photographer is standing by basement stairwell. Stools are to the right. Oak floor begins just where the peninsula Formica begins on right. Putting tile on an angle made the front hall a little more interesting. This tile camouflages dog hair--a benefit! [speculative mode on] This report is from 11 month vantage. Hope I continue to like the oak floor in kitchen. I started out with vinyl, excuse me, "resilient flooring" throughout the kitchen, halls, and lobby in my plan and once in a while I still wonder if I would have found it better in the long run. And...I could have called the installers and had it done in short order; this took us weeks of DIY and as I said, eternal vigilance is the price of oak floor.

I am trying to match existing red oak hardwood floor. It is 2 1/4" wide, beveled, finished with Bona. So, it looks natural and has flat finish. I like to extend into an adjecant room but trying to avoid the full custom, sanding, etc process. Does anyone know of a source of such floor?