Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your hardwood flow?
Regardless of what type of house we eventually buy, Jason and I agree on some large things, and one of those is hardwood. While we realize that we probably won’t be able to afford hardwood right out of the gate, we do want to eventually change at least the whole first floor (minus bathrooms, of course) to hardwood. But what kind, width, color, and dare I say pattern of the flooring will largely depend on the house and rooms we’ll put them in.
Just googling “hardwood floors” get a really interesting mix of results:
And this was just the first page!
We know that while we like blonde woods in other homes, they just aren’t for us. I don’t think we’d be brave enough to do two completely different woods next to each other (last one in the first row) or to inlay a striking pattern that can’t be easily or cheaply change (second one in second row). But what about hand scraped? Multitonal? Dark? Medium? Cherry? Skinny or wide plank? Ahhhh! Too many choices!
One of the looks I didn’t realize that I loved until recently was wide planking. As I swooned over the rest of John and Sherry’s recent purchase over at Young House Love, I absolutely fell 100% in love with their wide-planked bedroom. Take a look!
Of course, they’ve been in their house for, oh, 20 minutes and it already looks like a magazine 😛 But seriously – don’t those wide planks look fabulous? I love the hint of a rustic look that they add to the clean, contemporary space.
Another look I love for larger rooms is the square pattern, where all the planks face the middle to make the room look like a giant square/rectangle. Smaller rooms tend to look the part with this pattern, but larger rooms seem to expand along the diagonal lines. This pattern looks best in a room with very little furniture blocking the view line, such as a dining room or a large entryway. Here’s a small area that seems smaller due to the pattern:
…and here’s how it looks in a larger space:
Patterns can also be very nice if done in an area that is well-exposed without too much intricacy/pattern dependence. After all, you don’t want the style/color/furnishings of your room to be entirely dependent on your flooring! Here’s a great example:
What kind of flooring makes your heart flutter? Do you love hardwood like us, or are you a slate/granite/marble/tile/carpet/insert-flooring-choice-here kind of person? Are you adventurous enough to stray away from the “norm”?
Two Blue Pillars 