Flooring colors

[gt7301b]

I'm waffling on the flooring color for our kitchen/first floor remodel.  Right now the entire first and second floors is a honey oak color, which is not my favorite.  I was thinking about changing up the color in the kitchen/first floor since we are staining the entire floor.  I go back in forth on what would be better, because I do like the consistency throughout.  I am leaning towards something a little darker but am not set on a color. 

I guess my question is how do you feel about different color hardwoods on each floor?

[mpm]

Sorry, different color floor stains in a house is a hard no for me. We’re planning to refinish our upstairs floors when we renovate our main level for this reason.

[Susie]

Different color floor stains drive me crazy.  I'd need to have a plan to make them match in the foreseeable future, if not right away.  If I couldn't figure out a way to do that, I'd use a different material entirely, like tile in the kitchen instead of HW.

We did our HW floors with no stain (cherry) partly for this reason.  If we ever refinished only part, they would be uneven for a while but would even out with sun exposure since cherry darkens with sunlight.  

[k3am]

Do your separate floors have a staircase that's not hardwood connecting them? That's the only way I'd even consider staining them a different color? (Ie: there are no areas that you can stand on one floor and see the other level).

FWIW, our stair treads and upstairs hallway are a different type but simliar color to our downstairs hardwoods, but VERY different type of wood and it's... "fine". AKA, I don't like it, but I don't hate it enough to spend the money to fix it anytime soon.

[mrsukyankee]

I wouldn't care if the ground floor and an upper floor were different colours at all. I'd go with a colour I love on the ground floor. Especially if I was redoing the entire ground floor. I think of my home as one for me living in it versus it looking any particular way for anyone else.

[simpsongal]

I've lived with it for 10+ years. I don't love it, but I could tolerate it better if they were both good colors (our upstairs is that honey aged/yellow oak, ugh).

I expect this to be a fight w/DH on our next big reno. I want to unload the house and do all the floors, he's surely going to fight me on it....

[gt7301b]

This is what it looks like when you currently come in the foyer. I would stain the stairs the same color as the ground floor. You can't see the upstairs from the ground floor.

In theory I dislike having the different color flooring and never thought I would consider a different colors. With the reno we have no intention of selling anytime soon, so resell isn't really a consideration.We have had a fair amount of scope creep in the project so staining the upstairs now is out of the question .

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[deadwing]

I don't love different colors of hardwoods. My house has this and it's not awful because the stairs are behind a door. I love the upstairs hardwoods (dark) and hate the downstairs (honey oak).

The hardwoods in my last house were the Minwax "Early American" color and I miss them so much. If/when I refinish the floors in this house, I'll probably use that color. It's a warm medium-dark tone.

[k3am]

gt7301b, if your upstairs floors butt up against the stairs, I personally would keep them all the same color.

[origami]

Oof that’s tough. Is it possible to redo both floors? If you’re going to need to move out and pack up the whole first floor, then I’d seriously consider doing both floors. Just to avoid going through all that again. If not then I’d just live with 2 different colors and hope that I’d unsee it after a while.

[annieh22]

This is tricky. Is it in the budget to eventually refinish the upper floors (like within a few years)? If yes, then I’d do it.
Maybe add a runner to the stairs to ease the transition as those can be put in and taken out easily.

[dr.girlfriend]

I wouldn't (and don't) care.

We have wide-plank medium-brown engineered hardwood throughout our first floor, including the bottom stair landing. The upper floor is still the 1950's original thin-plank pine. It probably needs to be refinished but sounds like a big hassle since we'd have to clear everything out of both bedrooms. Honestly, it would probably be less hassle to replace than refinish since at least that way they could just move stuff room to room.  It's also not a big priority since we spend all our time downstairs and only go upstairs to sleep. And honestly, both bedrooms are smallish and have rugs that cover almost the whole floor.  Except for the second floor landing I think you'd be hard-pressed to even notice what kind of flooring is up there. 

For us, though, the ship has sailed on resale. We are doing what we like in this house with the goal of living here as long as we can, and don't really care about resale.

Downstairs:



Upstairs:



I had to go back 15 years to nursery pics to find one! This is what the room looks like now and you can't even see the floor.

[gt7301b]

origami and annieh22 it is out of the budget to redo all of the floors this year, but possible in a couple of years.

We've basically divided the first floor into two flooring sections, the kitchen and tv room that will get new floors and the dinning room and play room that will just be refinished. The flooring contractor said they can manage doing the floors in the two sections. We are aiming for them to do the work while we are gone over spring break. That gives them about three weeks to get the rest of the kitchen work done, which seems feasible, however, the pace has slowed over the last week or two.

[gt7301b]

@dr.girlfriend, I think we are in a similar boat. We will never get the value we have put into the house back and have every intention to stay here for a long time.

There are very few homes in our neighborhood that have the footprint to open up the kitchen like so I think we ultimately will come out ahead by doing the renovation. We have rugs in a couple of rooms, but I like the idea of adding a couple more to disguise the difference. I can't even tell that the floor in the nursery is different with the rugs.

[annieh22]

gt7301b with the info you just mentioned, I say go for it. Lots of homes have different color flooring, so go with what you will love in your space. You can think of it as doing the whole house in phases. No time limits on how long between phases.