Hardwood Floor Questions - Help!

16 years ago

I have existing hardwood floors in my kitchen, family room, and foyer. They are original to the house which was built in 1965 and are dark, wide planks with real pegs. We need to lay hardwood floors in the living room, dining room, and hallway because my son is in a wheelchair and wheelchairs and carpeting don't mix! They don't make this stuff any more so I can't match it. How do I go about laying a different floor that will coordinate with the existing one. Are there any hard and fast rules? The foyer is small, so I can replace the existing with the new, but can't afford to do that to all the floors and besides, they're in terrific shape (though a bit old-fashioned for our taste). The new floor will butt up against the old on the transition from kitchen to dining and from foyer to family room. There are french doors at both transition locations. What type of flooring should we use that's durable and will stand up to repeated wheelchair rolling over it? What type is easiest to lay if we do it ourselves? How much should we expect to pay if we hire a handyman to lay it for us? Any info. would be appreciated, especially about how to use 2 different hardwoods together!

Here's a pic to give an idea what it looks like

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Comments (4)

olychic
16 years ago
My son just laid hardwoods in his condo that look exactly like what you have. He bought the materials off CL from a homeowner who had excess from his own job, so I don't know if he'd know what brand they are, but I can check. If you could match as close as possible and refinish the old at the same time you finish the new, they might blend perfectly (although I think my son's was prefinished).
nkkp
16 years ago
At the doorways where our hardwood meets tile we ran a wide (like 4 inch) plank of oak along the opening of the doorway to catch the ends of the hardwood. It provides a visual break and a clean line before the tile. Maybe you could do something like that to transition between the two types of hardwood.

As far as hardwoods go, oak is very hard and wears well. If you are using real traditional oak flooring over a wooden subfloor you can rent a nailer and install it yourself. It very easy to do. One advantage to using true hardwood flooring is that it can be sanded more times, and sanded deeper, than the snap together type.

HTH!
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User
16 years ago
First of all, your flooring is so pretty, I love it! This may or may not be of help, but I would never hire a handyman to do the installation. I would instead, get the name of a reputable installer from the store you buy your wood from or call Lumber Liquidators and ask them for a referral. They have a list of guys who work independently but get a lot of their work through Lumber Liquidator referrals. That's where we bought our wood from and before we decided to do our own installation, we met several installers there. If I recall correctly, the average pricing for labor in our area 2-3 years ago was around 13.00 - 16.00 psf depending on the wood.

As far as the type of flooring goes, I definitely agree that the 3/4 inch planks are going to be your best option for reasons already stated and again a professional layer is going to know how to transition the two floors together. Really in regards to your other concerns about which wood would hold up best, again, I would pick up the phone and call some of the local distributors. They will be your best resource regarding the different wood types and their durability. When I started researching for our floors, I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful the people at our local Lumber Liquidator store were. A couple of the installers seemed to always be present in the store and they would spend a lot of time giving us some very good tips regarding installation as well as information about the variety of woods we were interested in.
camlan
16 years ago
I agree with Olychick that if you refinish the existing wood at the same time that you are installing and finishing the new wood, you'll have a better chance at matching the color. If the color is consistent throughout, any other differences will be minimized.

As for the wheelchair--my brother installed prefinished hardwood in his wheelchair accessible addition, built for his son. The prefinished stuff is trashed. The original 1970s hardwood in the rest of the house is fine. So get the most durable finish you can find. And don't get the microbevels--those are dirt traps and wheelchairs can drag in a lot of mud (at least my nephew's can).