What color are you hardwood floors? there is not but 10 billion shades to choose from. I'll never pick on out.
Medium brown or maybe a medium oak color. Light enough to brighten the rooms but dark enough to avoid seeing too many scratches. Love them! I usually wax them twice a year and in today's world it is very easy to wax. Cannot tell that teenagers hang out, rolling suit cases are pulled over them or anything. Sherry P.S. Teen suggested I post a picture, if needed. Let me know.
Ours are a cinnamin oak. I don't have pictures, but you can feel free to stop by. What type of wood are you putting down? That would make a big difference in my decision. I personally love hickory, as it is both light and dark, and thus creates beautiful contrast. For hickory I'd use a lighter stain so that you could see more of the natural wood grain. We have oak, so I was looking for a stain that was richer and contained a red tint, as yellow oak would have looked dated in our house, which has deep cheery cabinetry.
Feel free to stop by here. We have very light colored bamboo. Lightest shade. We like it. I think the dark would have shown more scuff marks in our house so glad we chose this shade. It is tough though b/c SO many choices. Good luck and I live in Southills if you'd ever want to take a look. Can't say there won't be anything on the floor--LOL. But you'd be able to see how the color looks in a room. My mom used to have gorgeous dark cherry floors but it did make it dark in the room. Looked nice though. Stephanie--mom to 7
My mom just picked out some bamboo flooring by Pergo, she loved the look of it for her southern FL condo.
I can't remember the name or color of the main house, but in our office I know we have brazillian cherry, which I love. It's a darker color, and I can tell you that my husband has had many customers complain that it will become discolored by the sun, like if you put down a rug or cover parts of it with something. So that is something to keep in mind. And another thing, sometimes the kind of finish (high-gloss, example) will mean more than the color of it, as far as scratches goes. My hubby has learned alot about these things over the years, so I just let him pick it all out, and it looks great! He can even lay hardwoods, but didn't do ours, we've got a lot of floor to cover!! (his parade house even won a special feature award for the special hardwoods he put in, but can't remember what kind they were either!) Good luck with whatever you pick out! Just talk to as many people as you can, like you are now, it's a pretty big decision in the house!
I agree about the finish. Our realtor advised us to go with Satin instead of glossy, and I am so glad! SIL has glossy and you can see every little scratch. On mine it is so hard to see scratches. One complaint about darker colors is that they show dust and dirt. We had darker hardwoods in our old house and I was constantly vacuuming under the couch and behind furniture because it was so easy to see the dust. Another thing I would recommend is to go with smooth floors. Our old ones had a beveled type edge, so there was like a notch between the planks. It looked great, but it was so hard to keep clean in the notches.
we have 'real wood' Oak floors, stain is Early American Oak, which is a tiny bit reddish, also went with the satin finish. So far no a single German Shepherd toe nail scratch. We are very happy.
