We recently ripped up the old tile and linoleum in our soon-to-be new kitchen, and were surprised to find beautiful hardwood underneath. Originally, we had planned on bringing hardwood into the kitchen that matched the rest of the house. However now, we are considering refinishing this unveiled wood. The problem is, the two floors are completely different. In the photo, the top floor is what is in the rest of the house. It runs in one direction (horizontal in the photo), looks like oak, and is a narrow plank. The uncovered wood in our kitchen runs perpendicular to the other floor (Bottom wood in the picture, vertical), and looks like a redwood with a wider plank. We had thoughts about staining the kitchen floor something completely different, like a dark ebony stain to offset the white cabinets. This would also avoid us trying to match two different woods. Plus, the redwood is stunning, I can't imagine tearing it up! But, the question I have is: Will it look bad to have two different wood floors up against one another? The threshold from our kitchen to the dining room (which is what is shown in the photo) is approximately 6 feet wide. We were going to add a proper cover piece so that the transition between each floor looked complete. Give me your thoughts. Will two different wood floors look odd? Suggestions for stain colours? Other ideas in general? Thanks!

Yeah one finished room. (Of course still full of dust) They finished our bedroom yesterday. Still have to enventually come back and do the closet, but for now have moved on to the great room. camlan..Their doing the same thing here. Running the wood with no seams from room to room. I hope ours eventually "glow" right now they just glow of dust, but it still is looking nice. judydel. I like to buy rugs at TJ Max HomeGoods. Patty Cakes.. Oh no. The stairs is what inspired us to do this hardwood job. We just finished painting the stairs yesterday. The carpet that was on the stairs was old, dirty and ugly. It had to come up. My kids are teenagers, so hopefully safety wont be an issue. We'll see if they become too loud, etc., we can always eventually add a runner to them. beth..Your floors, rugs and house are beautiful. Thanks for sharing the photos and experience. work.. Thanks for the advice. I'll remember this for the near future. Id love a sweeper I could run on the floor and not have to worry about damage.

ok, this is an area where I actually know something! I sold and spec'ed hardwood for a custom shop before my mommy-life. The information you are getting here is correct. Engineered floors will give you 1-2 refinishings ON A PERFECT SUBFLOOR. One of the issues that sometimes arises if there are inconsistanies in the height of your subfloor. Because there is thinner wood wearlayer (before you get to the engineered wood) there is the chance that you can damage the floor irreparably when you sand it. Now I only saw this saw this happen twice, once on a loft job and once in an older home. The loft was more subtle as it was over concrete, the old house more obvious as they were DIYers and picked engineered flooring to try to negate their irregular subfloor (they neglected to tell us that that was why they chose engineered, we would have talked them out of it had we seen the floor first) Neither of their claims to the manufacturer were fully settled because both times they did not follow the guidelines for floor prep. The loft job was also a materials only job for us with their GC laying the floors but he insisted he knew what he was doing. A good engineered floor will not be cheaper than most of your nail down options because the production costs are higher. Now having said that, GOOD engineered floors certainly have their place in places where you can't put traditional hardwood due to height restrictions or concrete subfloors. My boss had a great engineered floor in his basement and it survived a flood remarkably well (it was ash, Kahrs brand out of Scandinavia and one of the beefier engineered floors and one of the pioneers) My Grandmother also had a Kahrs floor in her ground suite condo and she LOVED it and I was impressed by the milling. I'm considering it for our basement because it's warmer and less echo-y than laminate There has been a lot of 2nd rate engineered flooring coming out of China and being labeled for all sorts of different companies. You should be able to tell an engineered sample because the layers are sandwiched together and the tongue will be a different wood than the top (showing) layer. Distressed finishes are usually more expensive because of the extra step in manufacturing to make it distressed. That is different than just getting a lower grade of hardwood like a rustic or tavern grade (in solid hardwood). Those grades have more character but they often don't carry a warranty and generally have a higher waste percentage. Another thing to think about---if you ever have to replace part of the floor, you will always be able to replicate 3/4" thick hardwood but engineered floors are more like tile, they change and get discontinued over the years. You could go pre-finished, save the hassle of site finishing but with the thicker wear-layer a 3/4" nail down floor offers. Only you will know if you can handle beveling or not. The changes in milling the last 10 years are huge. The bevel in your better milled wood is tiny. I like Canadian mills, Model or Mirage for pre-finished. Remember that if you ever re-finish, the bevel will disappear and you will, essentially have a site finished floor. One benefit that many people don't know about? With a prefinished tongue and grooved floor you can have a good installer cut out a single board (or more) from your floor if it gets damaged which is why we did a fair bit of pre-finished in new homes since inevitably we would get call-backs at move in to repair trade damage (@#$%^ plumbers and their big wrenches!). Prefinished hardwood deals the best with shinkage and expansion issues because the finish is on individual boards. Site finished floors are more labor intensive but the materials are cheaper (apples to apples). They are what many people consider the gold standard however there are more steps and you don't always know how it's going to look until it's done. There is more chance of finish contamination and trade damage during the rest of the building process. We refinished 100 year old floors. I loved the idea that there wasn't 4 generations of carpet and crap in the landfill. Definitely a forever floor and it can usually be re-sanded for all but the very worst water damage (think entire house under water for a few days) If you are going with a wide plank, keep in mind your species and humidity level (and your ability to keep humidity stable). The wider the plank (with 3/4" thick flooring), the more obvious shrinking and expanding will be. If you take a 2" wide board and it shrinks 2%, it isn't very noticeable. If you take a 6" wide board and it shrinks 2% the gaping will be more noticeable and in the case of a site finished floor *could* pull your finish apart. You'll need to find a flooring contractor in your area with lots of experience. Most of the best hardwood shops ONLY do hardwood. Beware of carpet shops and many of the big box stores in many instances. Make sure they are accredited with the NWFA (national wood flooring association) http://www.nwfa.org/member/ good luck!

Old homes often have more than one type of wood flooring and 50's is beginning to take on old home status:) This Old House did a home from the 60's or 70's a couple of seasons ago. Go ahead with the pine, though it is a softer floor than oak and it may take a beating. It might even be what they did for a subfloor. If it doesn't hold up well, you can always lay oak over it later.