We have a flooring front-runner

I went into Halifax earlier this week on a mission to find hardwood flooring. I came home with nine samples (I like making my life as difficult as possible!). Each time I laid them out and then narrowed them down to a couple of favourites, there’s one that made the cut each time. I don’t want to say that it’s the winner quite yet, but it’s definitely the front-runner.

So here it is – from Fuzion Flooring’s Classical Elegance collection, Oak Serenade…

I like this hardwood best for a few reasons:

• The colour is a greyish-brown that will hopefully not show too much sand and dirt!
• The graining in the oak will help to conceal dings and scratches more than a less grainy wood like birch or maple.
• The planks are 7-1/2” wide – love wide planks!
• The colour and graining aren’t in-your-face, so hopefully the floor will take second stage to the more interesting aspects of the house – like the views :-)
• It goes great with the tile that I love – Ceragres Wood 2 in Dust. The hardwood and tile will meet in places, and I’d like them to have a somewhat seamless transition rather than an obvious change of materials & colour. Here’s the Oak Serenade hardwood with the Wood 2 tile. And a rock ;-)

Before I commit to the hardwood, I’m going to buy one box so I can see how much colour and grain variation there is in the full-size planks. After my previous hardwood front-runner not turning out to be what I expected, I don’t want to take any chances. We need about 2,000 sq ft of hardwood, so definitely don’t want to screw this up!

Next up in the decision-making process – finalizing the tiles for the upstairs bathroom.