Our hardwood floors are in! We couldn't me more thrilled with how they look. The color and feel are a combination of everything we were looking for: dark but warm, rich but casual.
We ended up using Kentwood Originals Engineered Maple Del Rio hardwoods. The floors are hand scraped, distressed, covered with a high performance polyurethane and come with a 25 year residential wear warranty.
We stopped by late on Halloween to find the hardwood guy installing the floors. Here are a few pics:
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| Hardwoods in the kitchen |
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| Vapor barrier |
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| The finished product, in the office. |
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| We used remnant pieces to create a small hearth in front of the master bedroom fireplace |
Here's a tip when designing the installation of your hardwood floors: remember to consider the orientation of your floor boards. We decided to install the boards parallel to the front door, running across the house from side to side. This prevents having the "bowling alley" effect, which we had in our last house (and to be quite honest, it never really bothered me), where the boards of the floor create a bowling alley lane leading from the front door to the back of the house.
Stumbled across your blog via a google search...just wondering what your thoughts are about your flooring choice after moving in? I love your style and finish choice in your home but I am nervous about choosing engineered wood over solid hardwood....
ReplyDeleteHi Beth-
DeleteThanks for reading! I have a few thoughts on our choice of flooring. So far, I'm really pleased with it. We had a few boards that had delaminated during installation, and I think they were defective upon arrival.
The nice thing about the Kentwood product that we used is that it's a tongue and groove installation. If there are defective boards, it's pretty easy to replace a single board. If you were to go with solid wood, you would likely have to refinish the entire floor.
There was also a cost savings by using prefab hardwood flooring. The particular finish that we picked is a hand scraped distressed flooring, and I find that it looks better with age and wear. The finish is very durable - I've dropped kitchen gadgets on it and dragged chairs across the floor and it hasn't scratched. With that being said, we were also very diligent about placing protective felt pads on the bottom of most of our furniture pieces.
One other thought: I did rub some acetone on the Kentwood flooring, as our tile guys were sloppy and spilled epoxy grout all over the hardwood. I was nervous that it might take the finish off - it didn't! (And for the record: the epoxy grout didn't budge either).
Please let me know if you have more questions. I'm happy to help!
-Lindsay
Thanks for your quick reply! We still are weighing our options, but your opinion was appreciated!
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