White oak flooring - rift/quarter-sawn vs. live sawn - advice needed!
We are remodeling our entire first floor and want solid white oak throughout. Our flooring guy is wonderful and will help with advice on how to stain/seal, but I'm stuck on which cut to select. We've narrowed it down to rift- and quarter-sawn vs. live sawn. Would love advice on what we should be considering, and pictures, too, if you have them. It's so hard to get a sense of what a large, open floor plan would look like from small pictures of wood samples online.
Some info that might help:
- Home is a 1972 (somewhat) mid-century mod/transitional home
- The kitchen cabinets will be a mix of white (BM chantilly lace) and rift white oak (see stock photo below) that meets the floor. (Does this mean we should avoid rift and quartered for the flooring, or not necessarily?)
- Space will be flooded with south-facing light much of the day
- Boards will likely be 5 1/4" or 6 1/4" wide
- We'd like some knots, but not a ton. We don't want it to look overly farmhouse-y or rustic
- We want a somewhat uniform look and do not want to see saw blade markings (again, too rustic, we think?)
- We are fine with some oak grain, but we don't want an excessive amount of the cathedral grain (as you see in plain sawn)
- We want a light, natural wood look
- We are located in Montana–quite dry year-round, so we're not overly concerned with fluctuations in humidity, though we would prefer a wood that is very stable
Thank you for any guidance here!
Comments (8)
PROlast yearHere is a diagram I refer to a lot.
Recently, I had a conversation with my flooring guy and he has said that even if your are getting a 1/4sawn/rift mix, there will still be a few reg boards in there as well and then a higher percentage of 1/4sawn vs rift. He did also deal with a place that would do a full rift sawn order, but you pay a premium since it would all be hand selected.
Hope this helps!
mtwren thanked Debbi WashburnRelated Professionals
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PRO
PROlast year
PROlast year
last yearHere's info on an engineered option. Engineered gets you a stable plank up to 12 inches wide. And at least 7 inches wide. Wider shows off more of the structure of the wood with character when you choose flat cut. Of course, that doesn't work well with the open grain of North American white oak quercus alba. An alternative is French or European Oak, quercus robur. That species doesn't have grain as open as NA white oak. Lots of flooring sources including Monarch Plank. Link.
Unfinished rustic French Oak.
LaGrande
- PROlast year
We received some professional pictures back from 2 Rift & Quater natural white oak projects. I can't wait to share with you.
Unique Wood Floors