What color wood flooring do you love?

[xokell2]

Is super dark over?

What would be the best universally appealing shade? Wide or thin planks?

Bonus points if you include a pip. I'm terrible at decorating. We'll be looking to sell in the next five years or so and I don't want something that will be incredibly dated by then. Any Recs. on where to look?

I'm kind of loving a grey-ish finish.

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[irene adler]

You could not pay me enough to have super dark wood floors in the dust bowl in which I currently reside. Our floors are a natural pine finish, and it's nice and classic

[crashgizmo]

I love the super dark wood look but know it would be a mess with our dog and general dust. Our hardwoods are the original medium wood finish and they are gorgeous.

[mypumpkin]

I love the look of very dark hardwood floors.

My house came with engineered, thin walnut stained hardwood floors. Last year, I upgraded to handscrapped, espresso, thick, wide planked true hardwood floors (I don't know how to PIP).

I won't lie, they are very hard to maintain with my 70lb fur baby tracking water, hair and dirt on them daily. To keep them looking pristine, I need to clean them every other day (which doesn't always happen).

That being said, I love the look of dark floors but I need to get a Roomba. 

[stretchad]

I love the look of dark floors with white cabinetry & trimwork. However, in reality I LOVED having matte-finished light hardwoods. No visible scratches, golden retriever hair and dust blend right in.
We've got brazilian cherry right now, and it's beautiful, but it's not handling the hard-wearing lifestyle of a toddler and 90lb dog that well.

[ddi741]

We are doing a hand scraped Brazilian Cherry in our dining room


link

We are doing a dark maple in our living room


link

And  this is just a floor I fell in love with.  Unfortunately we can't use it as it doesn't work with our furniture but oh man, some day I will have this flooring somewhere:

Castiblanca First Light

[M]

We had 5" x 5/8th" solid mahogany floors in our first house and my parents have it in their current house. Ours was glossy and theirs is matted. I love the color and will definitely put that in again when/if we ever choose to buy again.

The floors were the best features of our house and helped us sell in less than a month. Then our buyers turned around and sold it a year later in less than a month. Both times we each sold for more than what we paid.

If I can find pics online then I'll post later. Our hard drive is still missing in the mounds of unpacked boxes.

[karinothing]

I am not really a fan of dark wood (shows dirt so easily). My favorite floors are in my BFF's parent's farm house. They are like 1-2 foot planks that are very light. I don't think they are pine, but they are light like that. They are a matte finish. I just love them, but they don't really work in my house.

We have not skinny but not huge (4 inch maybe?) and it is sable which is a medium shade

[cajunmom]

We have a Brazilian Cherry. I like the color fine, but I don't like the shiny finish AT ALL. If we could do it over, we would get matte.

I love gray finished wood floors but I don't think that's universally appealing if you're concerned about selling in a few years.

[yentl]

I'm low maintenance above all else, so dark wood floors do not appeal to me. Which isn't to say that they aren't beautiful. Ours are a light pine with the original thin planks, but a bit thicker than your picture. I like the airy feel of lighter wood floors. I think if anything, I would want our color even lighter than it is now.

[elcjet]

I'm getting hardwoods in my new house.....while I love the light look of a natural hickory or even acacia, we ended up going with an engineered Hickory in a finish called "brushed suede Fedora." It's a medium dark brown in a distressed/greyish finish. I think it's contemporary enough to satisfy our love of the more modern styles, but not a ginormous departure from the standard styles people prefer.

[drloretta]

I like dark, medium planks. DH likes lighter more of a bleached or whitewash look

[mpc]

Top right is what we picked for the house we are building. We are doing the wider version, which is 5".

[raangoli]

We have red oak flooring (original to the house) and when we had the floors refinished, we just went with the natural coloring. It's a matte finish which is nice. I like the dark floors but 1) it didn't go with the home and 2) I didn't want to have to swiffer/sweep on a daily basis. Lazy, party of me.

Not my picture, but close enough:

[mich1]

The hardwood we have is red oak too, which is nice.

With the style of this house, dark would would not look right.

[imojoebunny]

May 27, 2015 10:20:57 GMT -5 raangoli said:

We have red oak flooring (original to the house) and when we had the floors refinished, we just went with the natural coloring. It's a matte finish which is nice. I like the dark floors but 1) it didn't go with the home and 2) I didn't want to have to swiffer/sweep on a daily basis. Lazy, party of me.

Not my picture, but close enough:

We built our house last year.  I do not like dark floors for living with, as I prefer a light bright living space.  We went with floors that look pretty much like raangoli's picture.  Unless you plan to move in less than 5-7 years, floor color style will change, so I would go with what you like.   We plan to move in 12 years, and by then, who knows what will be "popular".  Newer houses here are already moving to the mid range, not light, but not super dark.  

[dr.girlfriend]

I really like mine, which is like a medium walnut. It doesn't show dirt or scuffs too badly, and goes with everything. Here's a picture of it being installed.


This might show the color more accurately:

[countthestars]

Dark, wide-ish planks, not engineered.

Our dark floors do not show dust and dirt any more than our light floors did.

[dottyblue]

We have dark, glossy hardwoods in our current rental. I can not WAIT to get out of there. The dust shows, they scratch horribly and even footprints show within minutes of mopping if you walk across our floors in bare feet.

I hate them. I think it's the glossy finish instead of the color.

I will always go lighter.

[sporky]

Dark and wide! We currently have thin and medium-to-light finishes.

[zelda25]

I love light-to-medium tigerwood. The color variations are more appealing to me than single-color wood flooring, and I think it hides dust/dirt/scratches really well.

(pic not mine)

[ellipsis]

DuraSeal Coffee Brown on red oak hardwood, 3 inch planks. For floors you'll want something classic and not trendy.

[Deleted]

I like light pine or oak, natural with gloss. Thinner planks. Darker is also pretty, just not my style.

[scout8]

May 27, 2015 10:20:57 GMT -5 raangoli said:

We have red oak flooring (original to the house) and when we had the floors refinished, we just went with the natural coloring. It's a matte finish which is nice. I like the dark floors but 1) it didn't go with the home and 2) I didn't want to have to swiffer/sweep on a daily basis. Lazy, party of me.

Not my picture, but close enough:

I think this is what I am going to do when I have ours refinished this year. I love the look of the darker floors, but I am afraid they will show the dog fur too much. Also, we have a lot of dark, original woodwork around the windows. I think dark floors and the dark wood trim would be too much. 

[emisi]

We're going to go with a finish in place Brazilian walnut when we finally rip out our crappy floors and put down new ones.  Probably matte finish.