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Flooring Design Dilemma living room

Help! Need flooring suggestions

4 years ago

I've got a lot of different materials and would like to pull it all together. Carpet on the existing floors in family/living, laminate in kitchen, tile in entry, different color wood on beams and in between....What do you recommend for flooring and coloring?

Comments (3)

PRO
BeverlyFLADeziner
4 years ago

Medium brown stain on wood.
kcwoodruff thanked BeverlyFLADeziner
SJ McCarthy
4 years ago
What surfaces are staying and which one's are on the chopping block. You have asked to 'pull it all together' but I'm not sure what that means. Do you want ALL the same flooring throughout the home? Are you only removing carpet and laminate?

Beverly has a lovely option if you want darker, more dramatic flooring. Personally I would replace the carpet with a like-coloured wood. If you look in Beverly's photo, there is a VERY pale option called "White Sand". It would be your 'very light' floor option. There might be a 'clash of whites' in the kitchen...but that is easily fixed when you change out/update the kitchen.

And that is my next question: when are you looking at updating the counter tops? I can see some tiles/grout lines on the counter tops...which leads me to believe this is a tiled counter top. I'm also seeing some exposed hinges (nicely hidden with hardware/paint choices) but these two things point to a kitchen that probably is looking at an update sometime in the near future (next 7 years or so).

Please do NOT change the flooring until you have a FULL understanding of your kitchen renovation/refresh plans. If you MUST have the wood flooring NOW and not wait until you have a full plan in hand (take two weeks to figure out your vision for the whole home over the next 7 years) then I HIGHLY recommend you purchase enough wood to cover the ENTIRE HOME. You can put the remainder in storage and then pull it out as you renovate each space as it comes.

There is NOTHING WORSE than putting in new flooring and then realizing that your kitchen renovation means changing the foot print...and you have RUN OUT of flooring. Or that you really want to get rid of the tile now that you have wood floors, but you can't find more of the wood anywhere! And boy are you mad that NO ONE told you that factory finished floors only have a shelf-life of 18 months...and then they are gone for good!

Please believe me. We on Houzz see this on a daily basis. Sometimes hourly. Please take the time to plan your vision for your WHOLE HOME before you remove/replace things piece meal.
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First, please reconsider Home Depot. They did my countertops a couple years ago, and I'm still mad about it. They were very quick to take my money, but they did not deliver on time. I had to keep calling them to ask when they'd have the items (which were not special order in any way) ready. They didn't install 'til 5-6 weeks after the original promise date. Then they discovered - after the ountertops were in -- that the backsplash I'd ordered wouldn't work in my kitchen. Why couldn't the man who came out to measure the kitchen figure this out?. No apology, no suggestions on what else to do. And they weren't nice about refunding my money. I would not go to Home Depot again-- not even for something simple like light bulbs ot trash bags. not even if they were giving things away for free. As for your plans, I like them . . . Except I'm not sure that in such a small kitchen you can afford the space for a dedicated mixer lift.
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Comments (6)
You have: WARM travertine tile on the first floor. You have DARK warm wood cabinets. You have WARM countertops. The LAST thing you want sitting next to that BEAUTIFUL WARM coloured stone is gray. No gray. Nothing in your home says "I need gray to make it perfect". Nothing. Your furniture will change. Your area rugs will change. Your wall colours will change. They will all change inside of 15 years. But your PERMANENT stone or tile floors will STAY. If you must use a tile next to stone, I suggest working in the same tones. You can go darker or you can go lighter but stay inside the SAME TONES as the travertine. If you REALLY MUST HAVE GRAY - then rip out the travertine and start again. Gray and peach stone/tile do not like to play nicely together. It screams out, "I didn't want to pay to do it properly." I would recommend finding MORE travertine in a different sized tile and add it in at an angle (diagonal install). You can find a stone that is either a little darker or a little lighter. You can then add a decorative boarder to the rooms where you are installing it so that it looks like you did it on purpose. This is a great way to add more of the high-end stone to a space that already has high-end stone. But please do not add gray in with peach. They just don't like each other. Flooring snobs, like myself can see it right away. We KNOW when something has been done piece meal. We also know when someone did the piece meal NICELY vs. someone who did it without a thought to the overall look of the floor. Compliment the stone you are keeping. Let your area rugs turn the space gray. That trend is quickly dying. It makes sense to throw out a rug in 3 years. It doesn't make sense to rip out a tile floor in 3 years.
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Comments (13)
OK....whoa! Hold your horses on 'Refresher' products. If you do NOT want to do any damage to these floors then stay AWAY from Refreshers. They are, in a nut shell, temporary polishes that can prevent the full sand/refinish at a later date. Just as I suspected. The Bona Refresher is a polyacrylic + polyethylene WAX polish!!!!! Ohhhh dear. Not good. Not good at all. Here's the ingredients list: https://www.bona.com/en-US/Bona-Professional/Products/Floor-Care/Refreshers/Bona-Pro-Series-Hardwood-Floor-Refresher/ And here's the "How to use" Document: https://www.bona.com/Global/Documents/United%20States/Technical%20Data%20Sheets/TDS%20Bona%20Pro%20Series%20Hardwood%20Floor%20Refresher%c2%ae%20US.pdf?epslanguage=en Did you notice the "Use every 3-4 months" statement? Right. Like ALL temporary polishes, the Bona REQUIRES a maintenance cycle that is 3-4 applications PER YEAR!!! Is that something you want to start? Is it part of your busy schedule to move bed/clothes/shoes every 3 months just to keep the floors looking fresh? Not in my house...that's for sure. To refinish your floors PROPERLY you have to pay someone MORE to remove the gunk (don't believe the 'leaves no residue'...that's hog wash. Of course it leaves a residue...how do you think the floors look BETTER after use???) and then HOPE AGAINST HOPE the new finish will stick to wood that has been contaminated by a 'polish'. Even if it is Bona. Please oh please...NEVER EVER use any polish, refresher, 'Rejuvenate', 'Orange Glo' or anything else that says, "Brings your wood floors back to Life!". They quick fix today leads to expensive heart ache years from now. Your floors look good for 20+ year old poly. Believe it or not, it is time to do a full sand/refinish. I would plan on that for year 25. Save the money, save your sanity and just do a full sand/refinish in 2-5 years time. Do NOTHING in the mean time.
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PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
4 years ago
The rest of the house looks great but that kitchen needs some help so if you are planning on new flooring make sure you get enough to do that kitchen later or better yet do the kitchen then the new floor. As for color for the floor I would do the same as the wood around the fireplace it will look awesome with a new white kitchen to go with the rest of the house.

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