I had read with interest much of the information about flooring this summer. We moved at the end of July and had 10 days from closing to our move in date. The floors in the house needed to be completely redone except the kitchen, which was newly renovated.

I am so pleased with how the floors in our house turned out and I want to share the choices we made. I had originally been drawn to very rustic floor types, because the house is on a lake and it's woodsy and the house itself is an open, 70's contemporary with wood beams on the ceiling. I was looking at hand scraped hickory. The flooring person I worked with, brought me samples and recommended the white oak prefinished, 5" wide. I was reluctant, but then made the decision, partly because of financial considerations (even at 5" wide, it was much less expensive than the hand scraped stuff). We also went with a maple, engineered wood that clicks together, for the basement. I picked this partly on info I had gotten on this garden web and also my floor person got me a good deal. As mentioned on this website, the engineered wood can be installed on a concrete foundation. I like it much better than laminate.

Everything looks lovely. The white oak is rustic enough, but not too dark, not too country, and not too expensive! The prefinished is great for two reasons: 1) No messy sanding, etc 2) The finish is very tough (much t ougher than the Brazilian Oak in our old house which had been finished onsite). The maple in the lower level/basement is light enough to brighten a once dreary downstairs.