The prior poster is correct that the darker floors are harder to keep looking tidy. Having said that, it comes down to what you want and are willing to do.

We have a similar color scheme and had always wanted very dark floors. We have lived with them now for a little over 3 years and don't regret them at all - probably because we wanted them for so long.

Our flooring:

http://dm-flooring.com/products/palazzo/

Pic:

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For me, having them not perfect looking all the time is fine. I love them (but I also love our super busy granite that would drive some folks mad!).

Go with your gut re what YOU want.

sarahsocal - I like your flooring! I'm happy to see it has an oil finish! When we first started looking at flooring most salespeople looked at us cross eyed when I asked if they had any oil finished floors.

I'm afraid I'm going to love them for different reasons. I think I'd love the lighter because it's easy and a little brighter, and I'd love the dark because it's prettier and more what we had planned.

Form or function??? Ugh...

I have to tell you that we have had wood floors in 4 other houses - all were the more common poly finish.

Hands down the oil finish is THE best!! So easy to touch up. We love the non- shiny finish.

Keep pushing for it if that os what you want!

Jen was wanting to message you. Have the same issue as you do with the finish. Was curious if it was the flooring company or manufacturer defect.

The lighter works beautifully with everything - even the concrete gray of the ?cabinets?

And the amount of orange in the floor is minor. It is realistic without glowing orange. And warm tones are about to make a come back. The cool/gray/white colours (in flooring) are sliding towards the horizon and warm natural tones are coming back into style. The lighter floor will simply be ahead of the style curve.

gpeach1 - are you referring to the flooring we have installed now with the "matte" finish?

SJ McCarthy - do you see a lot of "busy"/grainy flooring? That is probably the biggest con of this particular sample. Every board is heavy grained. I just don't want to look at my floor and see zebra stripes everywhere!

Just curious, what is wrong with the current flooring?
I'm replacing all my flooring this spring, so I'm interested in all the good/bad experience people are having with various floors.

Both are much too dark.

That is the "natural" look of wood. To me it is beautiful. The way to assess the visual of a floor is to put it on the floor, stand up and walk away. At 10-20 ft, you will notice that you can't "see" all the stripes. You will only see a wood floor.

I have had many clients who put their floor up to their face (inches away) and said, "It seems busy to me! Is it busy? It feels too busy!". When I put the floor down on the floor (5ft - 6.5ft away from their eyes) and then ask them how it looks, they agree it isn't "so busy". And then asking them to stand back 10 ft makes them realize that it doesn't look busy at all.

Your photo of the floors in front of the glass doors is a perfect example of that. You took the photo from a standing position several YARDS away! Perfect. That's the visual. I think it looks great!

On the flip side, the current flooring (to me) looks lifeless and artificial because it does NOT have the movement/grain I would expect to see in real wood.

Jen Hans Yes the Karndean. Remembered you from another thread. Ours looks horrible.

Sophie Wheeler - Why do you say that?

hummingalong2 - yes, I would say it is richer than our current floor. Someone else said it and it's true - our current floor is lifeless.

Jen Hans,

First I love both but I think the lighter has some depth, movement and texture that really look beautiful with your elements. But of course it is one of those choices you will have to figure out what you love. One of those challenging choices that keep you up a night. I have been there and will be there.

Now, maybe you can help me? What does oil finish mean? I had wood floors installed and refinished and they had a matte finish to them through Bona Kemi. But in my newer house I need to redo floors and because I am on slab I need to look at engineered hardwood floors.. How do I find an oil finish with Hardwood Engineered? Thanks in advance for any help you can give. Trying to learn all I can for my new floors.

Thanks again

boxerpal - I don't know a whole lot but what sold me is durable and you can spot refinish whereas a water based in order to fix a spot you have to redo the entire floor. I am not sure if there is a matte/shiny difference. We are actually going with LVP (samples above are LVP) so I didn't dig deeper. But I would definitely look into oil finish.

A caution on matte finish - that is what our current flooring is and I HATE it. Shiny finish hides the natural oils of your feet/hands/etc. But with matte we can clean the floor and it be spotless, and then someone walks on it (barefoot/eith socks/ shoes doesn't matter) you can see their entire footprint. Eventually it just looks like oil blotches all over. It's terrible.

Why are those the only 2 choices?

Both are dark enough to be major work to keep up. Dark is like a mirror and will show everything. Dust, dirt, footprints and mop marks. That shows up on dark surfaces. It’s not about matte vs shiny. It’s about dark vs light.

Sophie Wheeler - Matte is definitely WAY more of a problem. We have matte flooring now from the same manufacturer. It is a HUGE problem. The oil from our skin, even with socks on, makes marks on the floor. It's gross to look at. We have samples of the dark flooring in the pic (it's even a bit darker than the one we have installed now), but it is shiny, and when we walk on it barefoot you cannot see footprints. In any light. We've tried to get it to show prints and finger marks just like the matte and it won't. It is SO much better. Leagues behind light flooring? Absolutely. But Matte is 70% of the problem in our case.

mommyniki - We have to stay within the same manufacturer of our current floor. I did go pick up a few more samples but they are lighter than we normally planned, and definitely a different color scheme. Pictures below. These four choices are literally the only options that we would consider, unfortunately.

And I'm not sure either one of these goes with our granite.

No idea if this pic is helpful, but all four choices in the sunshine.

I'm sorry but the beautiful trim is reducing your options. You are back to the first two options simply because of the doors/posts in the smoked wood look. Until you change their colour scheme, you are stuck with the colour palette of your first two options shown in the original post.

The other option....almost white. The silvered look of European Oak (it is a beautiful silver gray) will work. Your trim is dictating either gray brown or frosted silver/white for flooring. Anything with too much gold (as in the two showing in the photo directly above^^) will look awful.

I still vote for the lighter of the two floors shown way up in the original post.

SJ McCarthy - I feel the same. I thought maybe the red/brown "new" option would maybe work until I saw it with our grayish doors.
Unfortunately they don't have an almost white/gray floor. I'm happy we are getting new floors, because anything is better than what we have, but the options kinda stink!