Choosing the Hardwood

This is a bit overdue, but since the hardwood will appear in most of the house posts, I thought it deserved it's own post.

Hardwood wasn't in our original plans, but then we found some at a good rate and decided that it was the best option for us.   It lasts longer than carpet, and would provide continuity throughout the house since it could be put in the living room, kitchen, hallway and sunroom.  Otherwise, we would have had different flooring in all of those areas, plus different carpet in the bedroom. 

At first we wanted to go light.  I'm not much of a cleaner, and light shows dirt the least.  But Ryan liked a mid range colour.  I wasn't fussy on it to be honest.  I thought it was a bit dull.  We brought home three samples to make our decision.

The lightest one is a hickory.  It was really interesting and had a lot of character.  There was the mid range and then at the last minute we liked the dark and brought it home as well.  The mid range and dark wood were both maple.  We knew we didn't want oak because it was too traditional.  We thought that the dark looked nicest with the couch, but in some of the pictures you could really see the dust, so we decided it wasn't for us. The hickory had an interesting feel but we didn't think that it fit the feel that we were going for, so we went with the mid range that I originally hadn't liked all that much.  It definitely grew on me.  I had just been used to hardwoods that had either a yellow or red tone, and this one is just a brown tone. 



We weren't sure whether we would have to paint the pocket doors (but really didn't want to), and it turns out that the flooring looks great with them! So the brown can stay!

Overall we are really happy with the floors.  They are fairly classic and should look good for years to come, but they are modern at the same time.  Every scratch and dent is still bothering me and I can't wait til the time when it doesn't!