Wifey has decided that she wants to put in wood floors in the living room. She wants something rustic looking with not alot of shine and a little handscape to it/. She didnt really like what HD or Lowes had. I am looking for any suggestions or pics from what you might have done. Thanks in advance. Notice everything is SHE!!!

There is a store off of Emerald and 35, I think it's floor and decor. Go there, if they can't make your wife happy no one can. Awesome store.

http://www.lumberliquidators.com/
they have so many differant types of hardwood flooring. Are you wanting to install yourself?
I would stop by their showroom and see just how many crazy types they have.

+1 on floor and decor. They have a wide selection and good prices.

I installed lumber liquidators Virginia Mills - Potomac Plank hand scraped wood floors. Real dark but very rustic. If I had to do it again, I'd get the Viginia Mills solid hard wood Tobacco Road hand scraped floors, they look freaking awesome!

My neighbor put this in. Its a ceramic that is water impervious and looks wonderful when installed.

Looks like she will have to get to driven. Keep suggestions coming. Thanks

What type of subfloor do you have?

If you are on concrete slab, that is going to require several things to consider.

First, have to make sure you do not have a moisture problem wicking up through the slab. If you have a moisture barrier problem, you will have to fix that first.

Second, if there is no problem with moisture, you have to install a real wood product that has been laminated onto a backing. Why? It has to be glued to the floor. You cannot nail it to a concrete slab or glued to each piece of plank. The latter is what they call a floating floor.

If you just have to have a solid wood plank, you will need to put down plywood first to have something to nail to and you need to consider how much higher the plywood and wood floor is going to be. You need to see what it is going to entail to finish it where it meets another type of flooring. If there is a fireplace in the living room, what is going to finish it off at the brick or do you need to install some ceramic tile first?

If you have a pier and beam foundation, you can do either type of wood floor.

You also need to look at what you may have to change in the way of baseboards and quarter-round. With most installations you will just need to add quarter-round to the existing baseboard. Solid wood installed over a plywood subfloor on a concrete slab could quickly become your worst nightmare.

Check out Old Texas Wood. Used some of their pine flooring to match up with existing floor in a house that was built in the early 1900's. Give them a call and go see their selection. He mills his own stock and has a huge warehouse.

David - Did they buy this locally, and if so, where? Thanks

My dad owns a wood flooring company and Ive worked for him off and on for 12 years or so. Hand scrape floors are awesome. My next house will be hand scrape. It is a lot of backbreaking work but fairly simple to do yourself.

Costco has a display of wood floorings. Their price might be, might not be, good. I would check.

This is different from the normal laminates they have on display. This is a local company that they have some kind of marketing deal with.

I could really use some help on this also. My wife and I are going to put some type of wood floor or laminate in our living room. We have 2 large dogs that are in and out and very playful. So that is also a consideration in what we get. My wife was not crazy about the real wood floors as the look was to dark and rustic for her. Any suggestions?

Thanks for the replies.Anybody else want to chime in?

We looked at the carpet mill outlet in Southlake this Weekend. I really liked the place and they had some nice looking rustic woods there. I couldn't believe that my wife could not find something? This is getting to be a beating. On a positive note,
BBQ'S Outfitters is next door and I'm getting a Big Green Egg.
She may not know what She wants but I know what I want.

Bought this wood on line from a place in Georgia. Found it via Google search.

We had a small area, about 220 sq ft, so we were able to get a close out lot for less than $2.50/sq ft.

Frank, that looks like laminate flooring instead of wood.

2.50sq/ft it better be hardwood or at least engineered

I am planning on putting bamboo floors in my house as soon as time and money allows. That stuff is pretty indestructible, and the natural color was $1.85 /ft the last time I checked.

Cocodrie, some of the better laminated used to be that expensive. That brand had sealed edges and was made a lot better than other laminate floors. It is real easy to tell if it is laminate vs. engineers wood. The laminate sounds like plastic. Engineered wood sounds like wood.

this is half oak (12 inch) and half hickory (8 in)

put it in and it looked like this


then stained it and sanded and put several coats of clear coat matte finish.


The wood cost 16 bucks a sq foot but this was extra from a job at the ranch I work at so it was FREE to me... I used oak stair steps for the base board and it turned out great.

It is enginered hardwood

You might try Mission Woods??(google it) in Sanger.

Not the best lighting or pic for detail, but we put these hand scrapped floors in a coupla years ago.

You'll soon find out, just how much dust your carpet collected once you have wood floors. A swiffer mop will be your best friend. We wanted to install hand scrapped mesquite flooring. I just couldn't justify the cost of it.