Are you using true hickory wood or hickory engineered flooring? If the latter, it will likely be more uniform. If you hadn't considered that option, ask your flooring guy.

Maybe you can look here.

http://www.hullforest.com/wood-floors/browse-by-species/hickory-wide-plank-floors

Here is the picture of the floors. The links won't copy with the picture. These are clear poly.

Can I ask what's down now?

Jay Muse, here is the picture of hickory 7 1/2" x 1/2" wide planks floorings.

If you prefer the look of solid wood engineered floors with a sawn cut face would be a good choice that is equal to a solid hardwood floor look.

http://www.aayersfloors.com/index.php/home/floor/cut/fid/2.html http://www.aayersfloors.com/index.php/home/product/index/pid/14.html

Good luck with your project!

Wood floors are a big investment, I want you to be happy when the installation is completed. Have you looked at other species of woods you might prefer? Don't forget you can also change the way the wood is cut so it looks less busy. Good luck to you, hope you get exactly what you want!

And why, as a pro, Gray, do you not read the thread??? Or even the post above yours???

OP, beautiful end result..

Order one bundle and lay it out. Worth the investment.

STUDIO MB

"Order one bundle and lay it out. Worth the investment."

I'll just shake my head at this point and walk away from the thread....

Penny, it is not your money it is the clients. Better to test the waters than dive in and drown. My professional advice.Appears they went for it. Good for them they are happy.

I have hickory floors throughout my home. It never fails that when a new person comes to the house they immediately compliment the floors. I have lots of light, white walls with bright oriental rugs. We love it.

I did hickfloors and hate it. the house is dark and the contractor didnt know how to lay the wood it looks awful.

I just refinished my hickory floors and use Nordic tint from Bona. It helps mellow out the variations and tones the yellow down also.

A few things about hickory (after redoing our whole house with solid 2.25" hickory in March 2021):

1. It is VERY busy looking, especially with narrow boards. Almost like zebra stripes. But only at first. Over time, it mellows a lot. The almost-white parts become yellower, and the very dark parts fade somewhat. It's a little disappointing, to us, because we liked the wild look. After a few years, it pretty much looks like a "normal" wood floor from afar (with much more detail and variety if you look more closely). It essentially looks slightly more interesting than Oak at this point, which is really a pretty great sweet-spot.

2. The amount of variety from board to board is really stunning. Yeah, it's more subtle than it used to be, but if I sit down on the floor, I can study each board, and find really special boards with really cool grain patterns. It almost reminds me of the wood on the face of a really nice guitar or something. I don't see that with other woods as much.

3. It does expand and contract more than some other woods with humidity changes. That's part of the reason we went with narrow boards (at our installer's recommendation), to reduce the impact of this. But we still had some minor cupping during the first humid summer. And now we have some minor gaps during the dry winter. The cupping wasn't as visible the second summer, so I guess it worked itself out.

4. It is a somewhat unstable wood. We have some spots here and there where a board has split a little bit. You can't see it unless you look closely, and it's not really a problem. I currently know of about 4 spots where there's a split in our entire house.

5. It is very hard! I've dropped (small) metal tools on it without leaving a dent. We have a young dog who runs around a lot, and she hasn't damaged the floor. I'm not wearing golf cleats in the house, but it seems like a very durable floor so far.

In general, we love it, and I'd pick it again for sure.

Do you have a picture? I’m so worried it will be too busy and rustic for my liking.

I have hickory floors that were installed 2 years ago. 5" wide solid wood. I can't stand it. Much too busy for my taste. The sample I saw was not representative of how it looks when installed and the flooring store did not warn me. It took forever to finish this room, partially because of the floor. We were considering tearing it out and replacing but $$$$ and the thought of wasting resources makes me sick. The built-ins in that room were stained so it was yet another wood tone that added to the visual clutter. We finally decided to have them painted white and the room looks much better but I am still not happy about the floor. I am now trying to figure out what kind of rug pattern would look best to complement/ distract from the hickory. Any ideas?

Maybe try to get a large rug incorporating the shades of the wood. What about refinishing the floor with a bit of a darker stain to make it less varied?

*Gail, can hickory be stained dark perhaps to even out the color? It would be too busy for me too.