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The Hardwood Floors One Year Later

    Update on Hardwood Floors / jones design company

    Last November, we finished our biggest house project – new hardwood floors and freshly painted walls.

    You can read all about each step:

    the process for picking our floors,

    picking the perfect white paint,

    what the messy progress looked like

    and the big reveal.

    One year later and both Ryan and I still agree that putting in new hardwood floors and having all the walls painted white was well worth the money, time and mess.

    woodfloorsfinished

    Over the year, I have received a bunch of questions about our hardwood floors. Today, I’m here to answer.

    WHAT TYPE OF FLOORS DID YOU CHOOSE?

    We for months before finally selecting pre-finished, nail-down oak hardwood.

    We talked about carrying the existing blonde hardwoods into the hallway and living room (see a before here). We talked about doing tile. We talked about just keeping the hardwoods and replacing the carpet. We considered installing cheap wood and painting it all white. We even dreamed for a second about doing concrete (and then quickly woke from that dream).

    At the end of all that talking, we decided to go with the best quality floor in our price range in a dark gray/brown. It’s maybe not our perfect dream floor – I think we would both go with wide-plank, medium tone if cost was no object – but it was a great choice for this house.

    The actual flooring that we chose is discontinued, but this one is by the same manufacturer, just a different color.

    hallway

    HOW HAVE THE FLOORS HELD UP AFTER A YEAR?

    We’re a big, chaotic family. We live in the Pacific Northwest where it rains a lot. We have a dog. The neighbor kids are in and out. Our home is where we live.

    So, yes, after a year of living on them, the floors show some wear.

    (See that big scratch in the photo above? That happened on day one when we moved the piano back in. UGH!).

    We typically take our shoes off in the house, so that helps keep the floors nice, but Atlas, our labradoodle, has done his fair share of scratching the wood. We just recently added the sisal runner in the hallway to help prevent his nails from scratching when he runs obnoxiously to the door every time someone comes over. I’ve considered putting socks on him, but then remembered that he ate socks like it was his job as a puppy and thought better of it.

    One little trick we learned from the floor installers is to keep a Minwax stain marker on hand to disguise any deep scratches.

    fixfloor

    You just fill in the wood, buff it with a paper towel and the scratch disappears.

    ARE THE DARK WOOD FLOORS DIFFICULT TO KEEP CLEAN?

    We were warned many times when choosing a dark floor that it can be hard to keep clean. Our friends have super dark, glossy floors that are gorgeous, but show dust and footprints and require a bit more attention than what I have to offer my floors.

    Part of the reason we went with the matte finish, hand-scraped, gray/brown floors was in an effort to hide dirt, not make it more obvious.  Thankfully, this is exactly what we have in these hardwoods. They get dirty, for sure, but hide it pretty well and clean up nicely.

    dustmop

    Ryan bought this industrial dust mop that I run across the floors daily to pick up dust, fur, crumbs and wool from our rug that sheds a lot. We mop with white vinegar + water once every two weeks (and by we what I really mean is Maria, our angel of a housecleaner).  Other than spot cleaning when there is a spill, I don’t do much else to them. I’d say the floors are quite low-maintenance.

    woodfloors

    Adding in hardwood was a big decision and investment for us and we’re so happy with the results. Having one consistent floor throughout the main level works wonders in keeping things visually cohesive and grounding the space. The color works well with our neutral color palette and we’ve been happy with how they’ve held up (despite our hard-handling of them).

    And it’s crazy that a year has gone by so quickly.

    21 thoughts on “The Hardwood Floors One Year Later”

    1. Your hardwood floors look great! Our 1960s ranch has lovely white oak floors. I love hardwood – I don’t think I could ever have carpet!

    2. Four years ago my husband and I were lucky enough to buy a house from sellers who had installed hardwood flooring throughout. We worried about our dog and other things hurting the floor. We have a dent from our piano that looks just like yours, only even bigger. Our dog has scratched the floor in a few places, nothing major.
      We got the min wax product you suggested, and it helps. I also like Murphy Orange Oil in the spray bottle for occasional spills.
      But our biggest adjustment was our attitude about the floors. We decided that we would just look at those marks on the floor and choose to remember the good times we have had living here. The marks just don’t seem too bad.
      And yes, we dust more frequently too!
      I love your style and enjoy seeing your beautiful home! Thank you.

    3. Too funny. Your family is so much like ours…hardwood floors throughout, kids and ironically a labradoodle as well. But, we do put boots on our doodle…which has worked great! Funny girl happily wears them (well, at least that’s what I tell myself).

    4. Love the floors! We have the same floor but in the stain Applewood. Yes, it’s rather easy to care for ( despite our sheltie hairs, nail scratches and Nebraska winters)
      Question about cleaning solutions. I’m using Folex hardwood cleaner (the scent is awesome and cleans well) and I like the product but was wondering if you have ever used Bona products. If so what are your thoughts?

    5. I have concrete floors in the first level of my house and I would trade them for your floors in a heartbeat. They are neat but just not as “cozy” as wood. I also feel like they show scratches and traffic patterns easily. On the plus side, they hide dirt soooo well, which is good since we live in the country. Anyway, love your floors! And you’re helping me to bite the bullet and do white walls. I can’t believe I want to do white but I do :)

    6. Thanks so much for doing an update!!! We are renovating a house now and are almost at decision time on keeping the original floors throughout or getting new ones and this made have pushed me over the edge to get the ones I love (like yours). Love the tip on the stain pen too since our big dog goes insane for the front door a few too many times a day. :-)

    7. We put a big dent the first day we moved in on our new wood floors too. From a filing cabinet. Oops! Oh well, it adds character, right? ;) They look beautiful in your home!! Oh and did you decide to keep your old rug and return the fluffy white one? Just curious. It looks great, by the way!!

    8. Your floors still look great and the color is awesome! I am looking for a coffee table and love the one in your picture. Can you let me know where this table can be found and if you like it?

      Thanks and love your helpful blog.

    9. It looks like you used the same flooring in the bathroom. How has it held up in there? We plan to install hardwood throughout the house except for kitchen and bathrooms.

      1. It works great. Keep in mind that this is just our guest bathroom and there is not a shower or bath in there. I’m not sure I would put wood in our full bathrooms – especially with kids:)

    10. Your floors are still in great shape. It really just takes some love in the upkeep department to keep them looking fabulous. We just bought a new home that has 1880 wide pine plank in the whole bottom floor of the house. I fell in love immediately and if I’m being honest it was a major selling point for me! Even though they should be redone, they still look amazing!! Ah, the projects of a homeowner:) I enjoy reading your blog so much, thanks for all of the inspiration (decor and spiritually wise) you provide.

    11. We had the same problem with our floor when I moved the piano from one wall to another. Turns out, you can avoid this problem by rolling the piano over pieces of cardboard instead of directly on the surface of the wood floor.
      HOWEVER (!!!) it is possible to lessen the effect of having ‘dented’ the wood floor. You can steam that out with an iron. There are how-to videos on YouTube. I haven’t tried it on our floor because, frankly, ours just needs to be replaced due to its age, etc. But you should have no problem correcting it on new(er) hardwoods. Good luck!

      1. I think we did have cardboard under the wheels, but they still dented in this one spot (maybe just the angle of the wheel as we were turning it). When we moved it again, we added those furniture moving discs (from the hardware store) under all four wheels and that worked perfectly.

      1. Moving furniture including pianos can be made easier by using “forearm forklifts”. These back saver and floor saver straps are amazing! You can find them online and at Home Depot.
        They are worth checking out!

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