Dark shows the dust. Something to keep in mind.

Also think about how gloomy or bright you want a particular room to seem--flooring color affects that.

We had Brazilian cherry in our last home. It darkened a lot more than I expected. It was very pretty and very durable (we had an oil rubbed finish-did not show scratches). But, in the end it showed too much dust and was too red for me that I wouldn't choose it again.

This time around we are choosing hickory. We shall see how that turns out!

Our newphew and his wife just built a brand new, beautiful house a little over a year ago. They have dark stained hardwood floors. They hate it. Said you have to dust/clean it every day because it shows everything.

We just had our oak hardwood floors redone this past fall. No stain, 3 coats of finish, we are thrilled.

Here's a peek.....

I love the look of the dark rich mahogany color but you have to dust them every dayâ¦.high maintenance.

And even when you do, they show dust!

We had fairly light bamboo in our old house - loved it. Warm, easy to keep clean, didn't show dust. In the apartment we rented this year we had dark-stained engineered wood of some kind, and in our current condo before we redid them, we had dark-stained real oak - beautiful in both cases, but as everyone has said, they show every speck of dust, so they're not for me. We refinished the real oak floors in a medium color (custom color - so no name, but it was 4 parts "coffee" to one part "rosewood") and they're both beautiful and practical.

We have Brazillian cherry hardwood floors which are absoulutely gorgeous. However, our 2 dogs (and myself) are blondes and you see every hair we shed! I would only consider nothing darker than a medium color hardwood for my next house because of the need to vacuum every day with my dark floors.

We have umber (now called gunstock) oak through out home for the last decade and are very happy with them. Like Deb (dlm2000) said they are most forgiving. Below is a photo taken in our home shortly after hubby installed them. The foreground is the Ladies Parlor and at the back is our Library.

DD has Brazilian Cherry which is very dark, with red undertones. Her floors are a high gloss, but with only 1 child, no animals , and a housekeeper who comes in and does the floors every 2 weeks, they look great. She had them installed 7 years ago. I have dark hand scraped which I love. They're more of a matte finish, which means dribbles of water don't show as badly, but animal hair.........I don't think dark OR light floors can hide that.

How about a nice medium stained maple? I had dark stained oak floors which, when clean looked fabulous. However, the nice clean look was gone quickly as they showed dust, hair, dirt and everything else. If you have pets I would think about their hair color. If not, then cleaning any hardwood will be much easier!

DH brought home a sample of hickory in saddle stain. I will try to post picture of my choices. It is so difficult, I mean..spending all that money I want to make sure I make the right choice and really like it.

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We have a wide plank natural maple engineered wood floor (see picture). I love the contrast with our darker furniture and cabinets. The light floor does not show dust, which is great as I'm not the world's most diligent housekeeper. The only issue I have is that as the years go on, I do notice a slight darkening which looks yellowish in certain light. But it's not enough to really bother me.

msmagoo - Are those solid hardwood or engineered? I'd love to know what the closest (lightest) one is. It looks like it's from Lowes.

We have two different floors for two different houses. One is hickory with American stain, which makes it a medium rich brown. Love them with our natural cherry cabinets. However, the stain is starting to wear in certain parts of the house - perhaps because they were stained by an inexperienced crew. In the lower part of the house they remain totally gorgeous, but were stained by a different crew and probably get a bit less wear.

In our new house we have wide plank white oak with a light stain - I can't remember the name, but it is pale light brown with some grey. I like them too, though they are not quite as warm as the other floors. It really does depend what you like. But I would never want a stain that covered the beautiful natural grain completely, like a very dark stain, which would also be too high maintenance for me.

I have 5" plank red oak in my kitchen, living room, dining room and hallway. It's unstained and has three coats of oil (I think) topcoat.

It's golden reddish and I like it. It's a warm floor. It doesn't show anything. I'm embarrassed to say how long it's been since I dusted, mopped, anything on my wood floors. They look great. My cats race through the house and do spin-outs with claws out. This is one time when oak grain is really your friend.

Katlan, Is your floor red oak? it's lovely. We have white oak left natural with an oil finish, and it is very similar to yours, but not quite as much contrast.

Msrose, the closest one is hickory with saddle stain, solid hardwood. The other 2 are brazilian cherry naturay and gunstock oak. DH likes the hickory but I am afraid it will look too rustic.
Oh my I am even more confused. Does anyone like their brazilian cherry floors?

I have more than 3000 sq ft (site finished) of brazalian cherry floors. I have had them for over 10 years. The darkening occurred in the first six months. I am a fastidious housekeeper, but realize we realize we live in our house! Always, these are the the first thing people say about out our house and want to know the details. They are beautiful and I would do them again in a heartbeat.

I'd do our Brazilian cherry again too. I've learned to be calm on days they need attention and I don't have time for them because when I do have time to shine them up, I'm in love all over. They are a drug. I can certainly understand why a med matte oak would be so much easier in the idea it hides the daily grime.

Toni,
Those floors are gorgeous, but I have almost ruled the cherry out because of the high maintenance. Does anyone have a stained hickory. DH likes the hickory I have a sample of in the pictures previously posted. Is it too rustic?

Msmagoo-if you Google hickory flooring there are lots of images of full rooms to give you a better idea of the look. I have always loved the look of hickory with a clear finish but there is a lot of variation in the color and I have always felt it was more rustic. I was not familiar with it stained so I Googled it. It is very pretty, and I think maybe not so rustic.
Fwiw we installed site finished red oak with provincial stain and a matte poly. It does show the dust a little but it is easy to just go over it quick with a dust mop. I have allergies, so glad to be able to see the dust and get rid of it then know its settling into the carpet.

I like the floor sample to the far left, the darkest one. Very rich looking but not too dark.

I would do light or medium. We had dark wood floors in our first condo - walnut - it was beautiful but it did show every speck of dust. We keep our floors very clean but the areas around furniture legs etc would always look dusty to me...

I agree with the pp's about a light colored floor. I love the looks of the dark floors but you see all the dust, even with a medium stain. We had a builders grade oak floor that were pre waxed in our house that is 28 years old. We lived with them until they needed to be redone. In 2000 we had them stripped. We wanted just the natural color with just poly on top. She suggested we actually put stain on them but a natural colored stain. She said it sealed the wood better with it. Fourteen years later they still look good.

I've had natural red oak, natural maple, natural Brazilian cherry and now I have natural hickory. I loved them all! Each floor matched the style of room/house they were in. Here's my opinion on each: Red oak seems to meld easily with lots of different decor styles. It's easy on the eyes and it does not show dirt or scratches too much and it takes a stain well, unlike all of the others I mentioned. Brazilian cherry and Hickory are statement floors. You have to really consider your decor when using those floors. Hickory and Brazilian cherry are very hard, dense floors which is good and bad. I find slippers and rugs are required to cushion your feet. My Brazilian cherry floors were installed in an urban townhouse with ten foot ceilings and long tall windows. I think dark floors look best with tall ceiling heights. As others have said, there's lots of maintenance with dark floors. I have new hickory floors in my lake house. I sort of have a swedish-modern-country thing going on in that house. The wide variation and light color of the hickory floor is just what that house needed to make the best of low eight foot ceilings and to brighten up some dark corners in that house. If you seal hickory with a water base sealer it looks more contemporary and less rustic IMO. Unstained hickory is not formal in any way; it's a very happy floor. Hickory expands and contracts a lot so be aware. Maple expands and contracts a lot too. What maple has going for it, is that it has little character and it is a very light flooring, good for contemporary settings.

What's behind and to the left of the reddish brown (cherry?) cabinet door? - It looks like another door except its top doesn't look square to its side.

I don't think the hickory color goes that well with the darker cabinet door in the picture. It looks like it has too much grey.

We did natural maple floor with natural cherry cabinets. I prefer the contrast, but I've also seen kitchens with cherry floors and cherry cabinets and that looks very good too.

I don't know if Brazilian cherry darkens to the same degree as regular cherry, but here is a picture of our floor with new cherry family room cabinets:

And here it is with our kitchen cabinets which had been in for around 5 years when the floor was put in so they are fully darkened:

Most of the color change happens in the first 6 months.

We got the second grade of maple floor. They had something a grade called select and better which is very uniform. Since it is for a kitchen, we got this which has more variation making it less likely to show any minor imperfections that use adds.

It has held up very well.

I have medium kind of cherry stain floors that are high gloss. If I had it to do over again, having a few pets, I would have gone with a wide plank pine that didn't show fur and wear and tear and had a more rustic look.

We went with Acacia and we love it. It is a very hard wood, it stands up to our dog with no problem!

What color are your cabinets? I am leaning towards the hickory or the oak. Then a darker cabinet. Maybe I am over thinking all of this, I seen all types of floors with all different types of cabinets.

Not sure if who you were asking about cabinets but here are a few pictures of ours.

i love my floor even tho its on the dark side..have no small kids or pets..every couple of days i use a dry dust mop..no regrets.

We did an engineered bamboo floor stained cherry and we love it.

Here's a vote for natural hickory (probably not what you want), because it shows nothing. I have character grade however & that covers up everything. We've had it for 1 1/2 years & it's great hiding the scratches from our now deceased older dog that lost all coordination in the end. Without that problem we would have had few scratches from out 40 lbs dogs.

i have red oak floors, and they are stained dark. jacobean by minwax. i cannot tell you how many compliments we receive on our floors. everyone notices them! the grain shows beautifully and the dark stain is so current. the light oak seems to be out. we are more than pleased!

I'd definitely go with medium for two reasons. 1) Almost any decorating scheme will look nice with it, and 2) Medium won't darken a room.

We have dark hickory and I wish we'd gone up a couple of shades. I love my floor, and I don't mind dust mopping it either, but they really darken the room, even with large windows.

Our room was so bright until the shutters and floor were put in. It's a good thing that rooms on the darkish side don't bother me.

I do like the hardness of hickory though, with big dogs and their nails, it never scratches.

another pic of my "dark" floor..which i LOVE!

springer - What is character grade as opposed to any other type of hickory?

ruthie51, your maple floor is gorgeous!

We have white oak character grade floors throughout our house. I chose them because I like light flooring, but wanted the dark brown and black character markings to keep it from being too light. Our furnishings are more formal than not and the white oak seems to provide a nice background for everything. The picture below is of our library after the wood was installed and before the oriental rug was put back down.

I recently stayed in a B&B where I loved the wood floors~ when I asked,I was told they were *heart* pine, but I thought she said hard pine. When I repeated it after her, I said hard pine, and she corrected me. It was a warm rust-brown with a matte finish, and the boards looked to be about 4" wide. I don't know if it had darkened with age, or if there was a stain on it, but it wasn't the light pine I would normally think of.

In my home I have dark hand-scraped engineered flooring, and while it does show everything, I vacuum almost every day. I'm very fanatical in general!

One of my DD's has the Brazilian Cherry, but in a very dark stain. It's beautiful, but with it's high gloss finish, shows even the slighest scratch.

I also think your decorating style could dictate the color. Just a thought.

We have a loft with north facing light and soaring ceilings . We have a red oak floor and finished them in a dark wash...almost ebony. It sucked up all the light that there was and there was always a layer of dust it seemed even not long after cleaning. You could see every scratch, scuff, footprint and particle of dust.They read "brown" ...i.e. you could not appreciate the grain in the floor and there was little contrast in the furniture, rugs etc. Long story short we refinished them in nutmeg stain and the place instantly looked larger, brighter and warmer...Never ever again . I didn't realize the dark stain would suck up so much light and the constant layer of "white haze" was more than I could take. Lesson learned. I think dark looks good in magazine photos and that's about it...FYI...the top loft is irregular plank wood and looks especially beautiful. We have a dog and the final result hides everything and still looks warm - not cold and flat and dirty. Just had to share ...medium or light tones are much better ...expensive lesson.

our daughter has medium African cherry floors, they are gorgeous.

msmagoo, what did you end up with and how do you like it?

jhockeyfan325 -- Our floors are very similar to yours -- a bit darker, with less red. One of the reasons I love yours (and ours) is that we have *long* boards. Some of the wood floors I see recently look like patchwork -- all short boards.

Either my old eyes don't see it, or we don't have the same problem with dust that some have mentioned here. I use the central vac once or twice a week, and we have flow-through humidifiers and Aprilaire filters on both furnaces.

Ours is medium walnut with warm, reddish undertones. I'm madly in love with it. I do need to sweep it every day, sometimes twice a day-it does show dust. Also walnut is relatively soft, so ladies' high heels might leave tiny indents in it, for example. But I still love my floors, a lot. Wouldn't change them, despite all the shortcomings.

April, no high heels allowed here! (Not that I know anyone who would wear them here anyway :-) ).

Chisue, re dust, we live in a very urban area, with a lot of construction going on around us. Dust is inevitable. Fortunately, it's much less visible with the medium color floors than it was with the dark floors.

My good friend installed wood floors in her current home. I tried to talk her out of the dark floors, as I know how OCD she is. She had them stained dark, and they are absolutely beautiful (like the dark floors in the other pics). But, she does complain about the dust showing and how she is cleaning her floors daily. I don't say a word....

We also have oak floors in our home, but they are done in a natural satin finish. Sweeping once a week, followed with a damp mop keeps them looking clean. Anything I can do to lessen housework is a winner in my book. :-)

We have stained hickory, installed over 15 years ago, and I would do it again in a heartbeat! I love these floors, they’ve stood up to three active dogs, visiting grandchildren and active homeowners. I’m posting photos, yet IRL, the darkest one is how they look normally, the two lighter shots are due to the flash. IRL the floors appear to be darker than in the photos. They are Mannington, and the stain color was Nutmeg. Hickory is very high on the hardness rating, so there are only a few minute scratches, even after all our activity. My son installed Brazilian cherry in his house and was distressed at how easily it shows scratching from their dog.

Rumba= no dust.

We have white oak, site-finished, 3 1/2 inch planks. Love it. The inset - on the angle - has one coat of stain. The rest has no stain. Three coats of clear polyurethane on all. My Neato robovac runs once a week; sometimes twice.