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Hi everyone.I have another post going about my kitchen and the floors are mentioned in it as they are a big part of the decision when building our house.
First, my eye is attracted to dark wood floors. I love to watch Jeff on Bravo since his Flippin Out days and he always did dark brown floors which I fell in love with. I was never a fan of "in between" color woods either for a floor or cabinetry. I have light cherry cabinets in my kitchen now and I hate them. I prefer one extreme or the other, white or dark espresso. The flooring with be consistent throughout the house and my first option was the dark wood floors, however, when we went to look at a home not too long ago, much to my surprise, I actually liked how the light floors looked. The home was bright and cheery and I liked it, but I still think I prefer the dark. The big question is will I be sorry? I am sure you will see every spec of dust (and I have pets) and if the sun shines in, I'm sure you will see it even more. Will the dark wood scuff and show scuffs more? I'm pretty set on most of what we want for the house, but the floors and the kitchen are still up in the air. Here's a pic of the house I saw and ended up liking the light floors. Thoughts? Thanks

This is what I am usually drawn to in flooring

This one is dark too, but has the bit of mix with a little lighter in it

I love dark floors, but I have light floors like the ones in the first picture. I have to say, they don't show any dust or dirt at all.

I would choose the floors based on what color cabinets you get for the kitchen. Light cabinets, dark floors. Dark cabinets, light floors. YKWIM?

My floors and cabinets are almost exactly the same color and I don't like that much. I like contrast and wood needs to be very light, or very dark.

We have oak flooring left natural so they're definitely light. I prefer them personally for the obvious reasons...they keep the spaces light and bright, they're warm in hue, they don't reveal dust, scratches or water spots as readily as dark flooring. Obviously, you have to factor in your pet(s) and potential shedding as well as the wood tones in built ins and furnishings.

Most important are the protective poly coats. If you opt for a matte to a satin, these duller finishes won't reveal scratches or water spots as readily especially where darker wooden floors are concerned. Keep in mind too, that you can always change the coloration w/ professional sanding if you find you dislike the floors after you've lived w/ them a while. That's the beauty of real hardwood flooring.

Bottom line remains...go w/ your gut or you're apt to be disappointed.

WWanda I agree. I am ok with dark floors with white cabinets, but I just can't seem to like dark cabinets with light floors. I think if I did dark cabinets, I might have to put a stone floor in the kitchen because I just can't see light wood floors with dark espresso cabinets. I'll have to see if I can find a pic of it to see how I feel.

The others who noted how easy it is to see dust and footprints on the super dark floors are absolutely right. If you don't want to constantly be cleaning, pick a more mid-range or lighter plank color.

We recently had our old floors refinished, and because of pet stains that went deep, had to re-stain a darker color than we started with...yes, we had to stain a second coat. Not a happy camper, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Ended up with either Dark Walnut or Jacobean (can't remember...senior moment ), and it shows every speck of debris within a 50 mile radius. Yuck. It's actually quite appropriate for the age of the house (1930's), so it's okay...just not my first choice. Lighter finish=less work. Oh, the junk is still there...you just can't see it!

I have to agree with others. The darker floors show dust, dirt and spots. I put in a medium color floor in my last house. It was so easy to care for, showed little or no dirt, and looked great all the time. I had lots of compliments.

i have darker floors - but it is what I like. I like them because of the "richness" that they have. The lighter floors in the first picture are too contemporary for my personal taste.

I'm very fond of darker floors and have had them installed on several projects. However, I am not fond of espresso color. I think it is something that will become dated in the not too distant future. My advise would be to do a mahogany or dark cherry color if you are attracted to something more traditional. They still show dust, though not as much as espresso.

The others who say the dark floors will slow everything are absolutely right. Some clients remodeled a 1880 VIctorian and were able to save 90% of the wood floors but they all had to be restained. Against my advice they chose a very dark stain and are really regretting it now - or actually, SHE regrets it. In spite of a cleaning crew once a week (this is a 3-story, nearly 7,000 sq ft house) and only the two of them in the house, the floors are a nightmare to keep looking pristine.
Another thing to consider is the amount of distressing in the wood - the "slick shiny" stuff scratches easily and is harder to keep up than the more distressed, handscraped stuff, especially if you have pets.

This is a photo of my house in Virginia. We installed 3/4" Red Oak in our house and I love dark furniture. We thought we would leave the floor 'natural' because a lot of the houses in the area had natural finish and it was popular. Since we were going to sell the house eventually I didn't want to make the mistake of staining the floor (couldn't be undone) and thought I would take the safe road.

I wished afterwards that I had gone with a medium stain, the natural was OK but so 'busy' with grain. In that area of Virginia, people just love the big variations in Hickory, so our floor was 'tame' compared to natural Hickory which goes from very pale to dark in one board.

We created a band of mahogany wood flooring in the Red Oak floor (changed direction of wood in the center). This ties in Mahogany furniture in the house, also works with Cherry wood.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mary Ruth,

In the kitchen after the top coat on the new floor dried and cured a few weeks, the color deepened a bit. The cabinets cherry stained Alder. I was shocked to see the wood tones get so similar. It seemed like the whole kitchen was one color. My Maple table also blended in.

I wanted a 'visual break' so I created this floor cloth to simulate a tile 'rug' in the center of the kitchen to brighten it up and to take some abuse if heavy objects got dropped on the floor.

I posted this photo to show how Red Oak left natural, Cherry stained Alder and Maple all look similar in this one North exposure room, in my South Exposure room, the light floor was visually lighter and brighter (sun shining in of course).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mary Ruth,

In our house now in Florida, I chose a medium wood color by using plank woodgrain tiles. This medium brown changes colors with the light (of course, sunlight and night) and looks less busy and more 'solid' as a color on the floor. I also love Espresso floors, but didn't want every little white dust spot to show, such as in corners or under tables.

I still love dark furniture and so chose differently on my floor coloring choice for this house. And since I went to 1/2 the size of the house I used to own in Virginia, my 1800 sq ft house is all the same flooring with no threshold stops and changes. To me I get the warmth of the look of the wood floor without the wood (not wise here in Fl on a slab)

Picture shows this tile in our hallway with the overhead light on.

I have dark wood floors in our bedroom and will do that in the adjoining dining room. They DO SHOW every dust bunny and fuzz on the floors. So...in our upstairs floors, we are going with more of a natural color.

I like the dark wood stains without a red hue, but not as dark as ebony or espresso. Every company calls them something different so it's hard to give an example, but walnut seems to be close.

Mary Ruth, your wood-look tiles look sensational. What kind of grout did you use?

Our downstairs has oak floors and when we bought this house in 1971 we had the l.r. floor sanded and stained a dark color. We have most of it covered by a rug but not all. I do not find it h ard to keep this floor clean. We also have some oak floors which I painted white and dark brown. Again they are no harder to keep clean than if they were a light stain.

I personally think it is the use of the floor not the color of the floor that determines maintenance.

When I bought my house I replaced the carpet with light laminate floors because I thought that was the practical choice even though I preferred dark floors. After a year and a half I had them torn out and replaced with dark walnut floors. Replacing those floors was one of the best decisions I ever made even though it cost a boatload of money (it was worth it). The maintenance isn't all that much greater either.