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Home Decorating Flooring Design Dilemma

What hardwood do I really want?

4 years ago

I know, a tall order to read my mind, but I've got it narrowed down to 3 and need to decide in the next day or 2.

Background: just purchased the house, replacing all flooring except mudroom, laundry room and bathrooms with hardwood before we move in. My desires:

1. Solid hardwood

2. Minimal bevels (I prefer site-finished, but going with pre-finished for time's sake since I'm DIY-ing).

3. Walnut toned stain.

4. Not a fan of hand-scraped (Mr. Weedy likes hand-scraped but on this decision I have more votes)

5. Needs to work with everything we're going to do with the house. Kitchen will be renovated down the road, likely with painted cabinets of undetermined hue.

House is built in 1990, brick and vinyl outside, want to keep in character with that to the extent it has a character. Living area is wide-open concept: one big 29'x32' rectangle, hall leads to 3 bedrooms.

So here are the finalists:

A: 2 photos posted, because it was hard to capture with lighting (they wouldn't lend me a sample). The one on the right is probably a bit truer. I can live with wire brushed look. $5.99/sf at local flooring store #1.

B. Not in love with the wavy hand-scraped stuff, but $5.29/sf at Menards right now.

C. Edge bevels are a bit larger than I like, a tad glossier than I'd prefer. $5.99/sf at local flooring store #2.

B & C I photographed on top of natural walnut flooring in our current house for color comparisons.

Which one do you think would be best and serve our needs most truly?

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Comments (3)

PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
4 years ago
Why not walnut again it is by far my favorite wood for floors and make sure you get enough to do the kitchen when the time comes. IMO walnut is a bit dressier wood than oak or for sure hickory which I find too busy
SJ McCarthy
4 years ago
Whew. Hard to say...my first reaction to A = will read DARKER in a house because the house will take on the darkness of the floors. If your new home has a TON of natural lighting and HUGE amounts of artificial lighting (some homes are well lit...others not so much) then the darkness of the floors will be off-set nicely.

Personally I think B is the closest to your current floor but I'm not a fan of hand scraped. It always looks fake to me. That leaves C. It is a close cousin to B without the hand scraping (if the photos are to be believed) and the bevel is minimal. The gloss level will calm down as you live on the floors (ie...they should get duller as they age...but it could take several years to do this).

I love hickory. It has HUGE amounts of movement (different colours). With a stain on it, that will calm down a little/quite a lot depending on the stain.
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weedyacres
Original Author
4 years ago
Thanks to both of you.

Patricia, walnut's beyond our budget on this house.

SJM: the house is actually quite dark. Windows are mostly on the north side in the great room, and there's a single can light in the kitchen. But we're going to add lights (and possibly windows) to brighten it up.

We ended up going with A. Mr. Weedy really liked it, I did finally wangle a loan of the board from the store, and laying it down next to the others, I did like the color.

It's supposed to be delivered this week. I tore out 400 sf of tile on Saturday and am trying to rid of carpet. We'll see how things go!

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