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DH & I have decided to get hardwood floors in our house. We will have the ceramic (which I just hate) taken up and replaced with wood in the entry hall, kitchen, eating area and powder room. I'm thinking pre-finished wood, versus the plain that would have to be stained and coating after coating put on.
My decorating style tends to be very modern/contemporary and I absolutely love the dark, dark colored wood.
Yes I know it will show dust, but it's just the 2 of us and we're able to keep up on the dust.

So.......do you love yours?

j

I absolutely love wood floors. And I did have carpet for a few years but was glad to move and have wood floors once again. To me, they are so much easier to keep than any other type of floor.

Although I do love area rugs!

Martha

We have wood floors on our steps and common areas and would like to add it to my bedrooms. I find it much cleaner and easier to care for then carpeting. You won't be dissatisfied!

Yes, I love them! They are 26 year old white ash that is natural( no stain) and polyed.

They are so easy to care for.

We have a good amount of hardwood flooring (oak) in our home some of which was builder installed and some we installed ourselves. All but the builder installed were left naturally light (no stain) and we had them sanded and poly coated professionally. In one room on the second floor (DS's former bedroom) we installed prefinished hardwood flooring.

You're going to LOVE your new hardwood flooring. Just keep in mind that darker stains show not only dust, but scratches more readily. For this reason I'd opt for a satin vs. higher gloss poly coating (multi coats) and cushion your furniture feet w/ pads so as not to mar your new floor. When the floor is cured after a sufficient time, you can further protect them via rugs w/ pads and runners.

Josie,

I love hardwood so I was surprised to read this yesterday. When I read your post this immediately came to mind. You might want to check her Arizona home tour if you haven't seen it.

http://www.4men1lady.com/

In a word...YES! Well worth the cost, effort and maintenance issues. I've had both prefinished and traditional, older, hand finished floors and love both, equally. Would never have wall to wall carpet again. Ever.

I'll let you know. Most of the old flooring and sub floor is up, along with half of the old trim. The solid oak is coming from Lowe's on Monday, and by the following Monday the installation begins!

We have a similar situation, where we ripped up the ceramic in the entry. Very messy, but worth it. We can't redo the kitchen floor until we're ready for a total reno, but we do plan on carrying the wood in there eventually.

I love hardwood floors, but not the hardwood we currently have in our house. The planks have a surface veneer of wood adhered to an MDF core. What that means is that the edge of a dropped can will score the plank all the way down to the MDF core with no way to easily repair it. Rather than being able to sand/restain the floors every so often for 75+ years, once is about all you get and even then it's dicey as to how they'll look (a little too much pressure with the sander and it'll eat down to the MDF).

Someday, I'll have these floors taken up and replaced with full-depth wood planks.

In our old house we have oak floors downstairs and maple upstairs. The old kitchen and old pantry are pine.

I love all of my floors, most of which I have painted. They are a joy to walk on, live with, clean and admire.

I also like dark, dark stained floors and we did stain our l.r. floor. I think you will be very pleased and happy with your new floors.

We have all the original floors in our 1875 house. Most of the wood is oak, but there are strips of tiger maple and ash mixed throughout.

Every room except the bathrooms are wood. They are in rough shape, need refinishing, but they have a weathered old glow that I just love.

They are easy to clean, I actually just sweep and mop.

The ONLY place that I don't particularly like hardwood is the entry hall. It rains a lot here and with the old finish on hardwood floor, that is a worry. I don't know about a polyurethane finish. I have marble in my entry hall. A lot of people here in older homes with hardwood have slate.

I looked at the pictures and read the articles on the link Annie posted. That person put wood-like tile in her bathroom. I did NOT like that at all.

So many of the people here have put hardwood in their kitchens and say they love it. However, they are better housekeepers than I am and don't have a dog who has accidents EVERYWHERE. In the kitchen I prefer vinyl as I can clean it with chlorox in the water.

We put pre-finished hardwood in most of our downstairs (tile in entry, kitchen, utility) and I love it. It's very easy care, as others have mentioned. I'm not sure I would ever put wood in moisture areas such as kitchens and baths - not because it wouldn't be fine on a daily basis, but because of the occasional plumbing problem that might happen. Apparently others do and are happy, though.

Yep. Love my wood floors. I did solid oak, the kind you have to finish. The one advantage to solid floors is that you can have them sanded and refinished, which I have done once in the 25-ish plus years I have lived in this house. Some of the prefinished floors can't be sanded and refinished.

Thanks for the input....I'm excited to start looking around and start the decision process.

Of course, I have no idea what this is going to cost...but I'm prepared


j

The best move we ever made was to install blond bamboo flooring in our family room. We are beyond thrilled. Our black Steinway grand looks ... well ... grand on it.
Go for it and enjoy!

You will LOVE the feel of the wood!

I loved ours in our Virginia House! I miss it sometimes, but chose wood-grain brown tiles for our slab construction house in Florida, so I will be reminded of having a wood floor (but can't duplicate that feel!)

Can't wait to see progress photos of your new wood floor!

Apparently I will be the oddball here.

I dislike my wood floor. The dog nails have torn it up and it does not have that 'worn and loved' look...it just looks old and well used and time to throw away look.

I personally find the hardwood floors very elegant. They are easy to maintain and clean. I would just avoid them in wet areas where moisture would ruin them. Else, the rest of the entire place in wood flooring is a great idea. You can refinish it and get the old shine back even after long years.

I love real hardwood floors and it's the only flooring I care for. I like ceramic in my baths and laundry room but other than that it's hardwoods all the way.

I would not go with anything else, however, I wish someone had advised us to finish in place, instead of getting Bellawood. The Bellawood floors were beautiful and simple, until we had children, and started living in our house. We have natural maple floors, and they have taken a beating.

Just this past week, a pumpkin sitting in our entryway (where our hardwood extends) that we didn't realize had rotted on the bottom. We had a few pumpkins out there. When we lifted this one up the entire floor underneath was ruined. I mean completely ruined - floors buckled, damaged, the actual "Bellawood finish" is just bubbling off of it, the floors are blacked and orange from the pumpkin. The entire area of wood is buckled. Seriously, flooring lifted and buckled! How long did it sit there? Maybe one or two days.

Finish in place with as many coats of oil based poly as possible!

quote:

Originally posted by Love, Lu:
The ONLY place that I don't particularly like hardwood is the entry hall. It rains a lot here and with the old finish on hardwood floor, that is a worry. I don't know about a polyurethane finish. I have marble in my entry hall. A lot of people here in older homes with hardwood have slate.

I looked at the pictures and read the articles on the link Annie posted. That person put wood-like tile in her bathroom. I did NOT like that at all.

So many of the people here have put hardwood in their kitchens and say they love it. However, they are better housekeepers than I am and don't have a dog who has accidents EVERYWHERE. In the kitchen I prefer vinyl as I can clean it with chlorox in the water.

Agreed! I would not change our maple floors, which extend through the entire first floor, which is open concept, however the floors in the kitchen are a mess. Yikes.

We put them here in our new house and have been in it 6 months and I absolutely love them. They are so much easier to keep clean than the carpet in our other house. I just love shining on them. LOL I use a Shark Steamer to give them a good cleaning. For everyday cleaning I have one of those big dust mops with the removable washable pads. We chose to buy from a local man that cuts the hardwoods himself and then we had my bil and nephew put the floors in, stain and seal them. They are gorgeous. Any problems and it will be easy to sand and redo them. I've heard prefinished is very difficult to redo.

I had 2200 sq ft of heart-pine flooring; beautiful, but stressed me out! Hard to keep clean and it dented/scratched easily.

Our next house will have hardwood only in living/dining; the rest will be divided between tile and carpeting.

Hope you love yours...but the dark will show the dust BIGtime...