They were excellent and very easy to work with, and would do any color or sheen that I asked for and sent out samples of what I was looking for. We ended up going with a different/local supplier that we were able to get unfinished and finish ourselves for less money, but I wouldn't have hesitated to order from Pennington.

Good luck!

Also, if you are doing hardwood stairs, get that pricing as well. I never even really thought about it til recently and I just bit the bullet on that extra cost. My builder was thinking we could do character grade oak to match close enough. And, he's probably right. No one else but me would know. But, I have to say, the waterlox on reclaimed oak is just to-die-for (imo)! So, we are also getting the stair treads and railings in the reclaimed also.

Is the waterlox applied onsite? I am unclear what waterlox is.

I really like the straight, non-beveled edges also. That is why I don't want a prefinished product from the regular flooring store. The planks look choppy and the edges are too deep. I prefer a more flat appearance. Those floors make me dizzy and some look plastic and unnatural.

Waterlox is a tung oil based product mixed with other stuff that makes is hard and "build" with multiple applications rather than just soak into the wood like true tung oil wood. We mixed our first coat of Waterlox with stain for a darker color on the floors and I am applying it on the trim after a conventional apply stain, then wipe off process. However, you can just use the Waterlox without stain for a lighter look. It will give a slight amber appearance to the wood however. Our floors have 2 coats original (first coat mixed with 1 part Minwax walnut stain to 5 parts Waterlox) and the 3rd coat is Waterlox, satin sheen.

Finishing our floor was once of the easiest diy projects that my husband and I did on this build. We had no experience with floor finishing and it was very easy for us, so I am sure an experienced, understanding installer should have no problems. If you want more detail on our application process, just let me know.

Here is a shot of the floors:

farmhousegirl - we are actually going with 4.5 - 6.5 random width. The flooring is actually old barn beams sliced down to flooring, so the beams are only so wide to begin with. But, I just loved them, so I sacrificed the width we were originally going for (8-10"), for the beam sawn floors.

I agreee with you that the bevelled edge is strange looking and probably a nightmare to keep clean. And speaking of crumbs and dog hair accumulating in the cracks and crevices of your floor, that was one reason I chose not to do wide plank floors. The wider the boards are the wider the cracks are when the boards contract. And then there is the added expense of gluing down the floors. And the higher chance of cupping and warping.

Since we had our floors made from our trees, we could have had any widths, but we chose to do a random width in 3, 4 and 5 inches. I think I mentionaed it before, but we also used muliple coats of waterlox and our floors are quartersawn white oak(no stain).

So I guess my alternative suggestion would be to think hard about the wide plank.

Westiegirl, what are your floors and where did you get them? That is the look we are going for. Buckhead, love your house and those floors! I agree with the issues on the wider planks warping, etc...so something we need to think about. Grace, thanks for the link on Simplefloors...very nice!

Floors really scare me. They can really change the entire feeling of a house! My friend did her beautiful 2 million dollar house in a wide plank, espresso wood that looks like plastic. It's so sad because the house looks just awful with that floor. It really would've had a better feel without that plastic look. I want to be really careful to avoid that.

Ours were just under $2.00 per square foot unfinished and I estimated that with the cost of our finishing products and sander rental the total cost after finishing was $3.50 per square foot, but that was considering our labor was free!

Because they are character grade, there are numerous knots scattered throughout them. When you see them unfinished, it is very scarey because the knot is so much darker than the unstained board. All of my family thought we were nuts to install them! Once stained then knots blend in and I think add to the unique look. The knots will collect bits of dust/dirt/etc. but they vacuum clean very easily. Our DD is the only one who complains about them. She is six and likes to dance and skip all over and will occasionally stub her toe or catch it in a knot.

We finished them ourselves. Rented a good quality floor sander for the weekend and sanded 3 times, each time going up to a higher grit. I think we started at 80 grit and ended at 160 grit, but my numbers might be off slightly. Between each sanding, I vacuumed them with the shop vac. After the last sanding, I vacuumed three times, finishing up with my household upright vacuum to make sure there was no dust left on the floor.

The first coat of finish was 5 parts original Waterlox and 1 part Minwax walnut stain, lightly stired together into a big mop bucket on wheels. We applied this mixture with a large lambs wool pad that looked like a dust mop. It is important to keep a wet edge and feather your laps strokes over each other so that the stain evenly spreads out. The second coat was applied approximately 24 hours later, again with the lambs wool pad and mop bucket, but this time it was just plain original Waterlox. The last coat was applied 5 days later (we were working on the weekends) and used the same method, but with satin Waterlox. Each coat took us approximately 2 hours to apply to 2000 square feet. The stain coat took slightly longer, the other coats took slightly less time. There is no need to sand between coats like you do with poly, which is my favorite part of working with it!

The first few coats can look splotchy and bad when dried. Because it is a tung oil based product, it soaks into the wood instead of sitting on the top like poly. Subsequent coats do not soak in as much and build more quickly. They start to feel more smooth and look more even.

You have now heard more about my floors than you ever wanted, but it really is one of my favorite things about the house and everyone comments positively on them now (they still ask about how I keep the knots clean!). Here is a different shot in darker lighting of our foyer with floors. You can see on the walls towards the bottom where we slopped the mixture onto the drywall. This is getting covered up as we apply the baseboard.

This pic is during installation prior to stain: