For the love of hardwood

Do you love hardwood underfoot?  We do and I came home the other day to some exciting new developments here at our little Casa L and J. 

I'm not the only one in the family who loves to be creative.  My other half J owns a hardwood flooring company (check it out here if you live in Winnipeg and are looking for some green alternatives to traditional hardwood practices) and he loves to try new things with wood floors.  In the summer I shared some pics of our cottage in Killarney, where he laid maple with random walnut boards throughout.

It's not for everyone, but we love how it turned out so we've decided to do something similar in our own house.  On the main floor we have a white oak floor and our upstairs loft master bedroom (which is currently carpeted) will be maple with random white oak boards.  This is a future project, but to transition, J is working on our staircase.  Here is the before, with the nasty old carpet, pre-hardwood...

With all the old carpet ripped off...

So J's idea is two-fold, because he loves creating one of a kind floors.  Rather than have the hardwood laid out horizontally to align with the steps, he is laying it out vertically.  He's mixing maple and white oak boards together, so that as you move upstairs you see more maple and the tranasition isn't so different.  The nosings (along the edging) are maple.

I can't even believe what he's done in two days!  As you can see from the pic, the colours are a little stripy but that's just because they haven't been sanded and finished yet - after that they'll have the same yellow tone at the finished floor and blend much better.

Again, it's not a floor for everyone - it goes against a lot of traditional hardwood 'rules', but we love to make things uniquely our own!  Plus it's always fun to see new ideas for inspiration. I'll keep you posted and put up some pics once it's all done.

Are you a hardwood lover?  What's your favourite wood floor?  Do you lean towards traditional or does out-of-the-box appeal to you?