His contention:
The oxide finish on the Bellawood is guaranteed for 100 years alright, but that is just the FINISH which is guaranteed. He says that if water or oil or maybe bleach whatever, should spill on the floor and go between the boards, something like dog pee or my parrots enthusiastically bathing in their water bowls, would wind up soaking into the wood beneath the finish. And, within a couple of years, our floors would turn black where these stains are present.

I'm talking about putting the ash down throughout the house, except where we now have the porcelain tile...i.e., in the sunporch, both bathrooms, and our walkin closet. So it would be replacing (or actually COVERING) the old hardwood in the living room, dining room, hall, both bedrooms. This is all now really damaged hardwood oak. Then I want to have that same hardwood continue into the kitchen, the new area of the kitchen which we still call the back porch, and also the add-on to that back porch, which will extend across and become part of the master bedroom.

The bone of contention is having the new areas hardwood and not porcelain tile. I want the addition to the bedroom to just flow smoothly as part of the bedroom, and not try to make it look like a "sun porch"....for Pete sake, we already HAVE a sun porch, AND I don't want to make another spot for DH to put his chair and sit and read--he has about four places for that, and I don't have a place for other activities or for my two big parrot cages. He says that the kitchen will be devastated by grease on the floors or spills of water or vinegar, whatever. I also want it to be more open feeling, which the similar flooring throughout would tend to improve.

And, if I want a real wood look, like other folks are getting in their kitchens, what in blue blazes are they doing that I cannot do to get the look I want?

DH says engineered wood would resist staining better, but not be as durable. So I suggested we just get it over with and put porcelain tile throughout, and it would be cheaper too. Oh no, he says it would end up costing just as much as all hardwood.

So I'm supposed to be finding some information from those who have put down the Bellawood (laid board by board, thus it will have seams.....maybe I should do it with as wide a board as possible, to reduce the number of seams?) Or what?

Any help would be appreciated. Your experience with wooden floors in the kitchen actually maybe family room?

I know it was swept and mopped with clorox daily. The greasy kitchen scrubbed. Lots of gritty muddy foot traffic. The parking lot is not paved.

I do not know what the flooring is and no way to find out. It was wood look but a plastic feel to it.

Our wood floors are original to the house, 3" wide, and I love them, but they are in rough shape. When we bought the house the floors were carpeted, except for the kitchen, which had vinyl sheet, and underneath the carpet was a layer of particle board/MDF, which we removed. My parents sanded and refinished the floors for us at that time. There were still some stains, nicks, patches, and nail holes that didn't bother me--I love patina, and we had planned to put down another layer of hardwood, eventually (17 years ago, lol).

I'd have loved to have exposed the hardwood in the kitchen, but the cabinets were installed on top of the MDF, so we replaced the vinyl and got used to the difference in floor levels. We've raised three kids here, eating almost every meal in the dining room, and hosting extended family meals in the living room, with no catastrophic damage from water, juice, milk, etc. (No inside pets, although the pets have all been brought in on occasion.) Strangely, there are several 'series' of tiny dark stains around nails in certain areas of the floor joists, possibly caused by moisture in the crawlspace when we had a pressure fitting pop off a water line (at 4:30 one morning--I can laugh at it now...kinda).

The most damage we have is from pressure stress--chair legs, roller skates (especially in-line skates), and Plasma cars. All of those could have been avoided, but to me they're part of life and the memories I have of raising a family here.

Given the choice and the financial freedom to put in hardwood, I'd say 'go for it!' And accept whatever happens as part of the story of the enjoyment of your kitchen. :)

The answer seemed to be that older hardwoods were much harder (bigger trees, rings closer together) and that the newer 'hardwoods' are too young and the tree rings are further apart...and therefore not as resistant to damage. I don't know enough about flooring to know if this would be a problem, in your case.

What about tiles that look like limestone? Those are kind of pretty and seem to be the next 'big thing' on some of the kitchen sites :)

From French Country Kitchen

From French Country Kitchen

I like the first picture and the way the wood island 'pops' against the light tiles. Here's a link to the article, with this picture. Don't know if this will work for you, but thought I'd share it :)

We used Mannington, and I would tell everyone NOT to use them. They don't stand behind their product and it is coming loose from the slab in a lot of places.

I don't know anything about Bella wood, but if it is engineered, aka plywood, I wouldn't use it in the kitchen. A few drops of water on it are ok, but any quantity down the cracks is probably going to cause a problem.

Other than that, I love it.

One thing, though, is that having all hardwood floors makes for a very loud house...carpet normally absorbs noises, and hardwood does not. This is very noticeable in my nephew's house...just a group of people talking and laughing in their house is uncomfortably loud.

Looking very closely at photos in 'lifestyle' magazines, you can often see moldings, baseboards, floors that are anything but pristine. Have you considered refinishing the wood you currently have? Old growth oak flooring can be refinished several times, bleached and re-stained, with outstanding results.

On tile throughout the house, had it in AZ. Looks nice, easy upkeep, but creates that echo from the unforgiving, hard surface... especially with ceilings taller than 8'. Wood in the kitchen... had that for 13 years. It gets worn as well and needed recoating, but thankfully no water issues. I used mats in front of sink and range.

I understand, so well, having that mental picture of a finished project, long dreamed of. But in the end, I seem to opt for practicality and what will make life and maintenance easiest... realizing it's my home, not a showplace.

How about wood in the dining room and leave the tile in the kitchen? That would go with the idea of using the ceiling beam to divide the spaces...the floor would do the same thing. Just an idea :)

We put it throughout the whole house including bathrooms. There is a great deal of natural pitch in heart pine which makes it very resistant to stains and water. We have our initial coats of tung oil on it and while it has to cure before being lived on (aprox. 30 days),water beads up on it even now.

I spent two years researching wood and different finishing products. I feel heart pine and pure tung oil cut with citrus solvent was the way to go with us.

It is the most beautiful floor I've ever seen in my life. We love it.All the old southern homes had heart pine floors. Wood in the past may have been slightly harder, but this stuff is darn close. I dropped a huge tape measure on it and it didn't phase this floor. It never even dented.

Looked at factory finished wood and walked away from it.

ain't it funny how that happens... I'm already thinking that some of the things put in to 'tide me over' til I find what I really want will end staying and never being replaced!

'I seem to opt for practicality and what will make life and maintenance easiest... realizing it's my home, not a showplace.'

I'm so with you on this!! I wouldn't know how to live in a 'showplace'. If it started out as one, it wouldn't be that way long... with dogs running thu and sleeping on furniture etc.

ML - if ya'll just stop talking and laughing it might help... lol!

have you considered redoing the wood you have down now?

This floor doings is sure harder than you'd think it should be! my sister keeps telling me to 'just put something down!' - ha - if she only knew the problems involved. She left it up to her dh and he put tile thru the whole downstairs (that includes the mstr bdrm) and she regrets that! he did it for ease to clean (which he does) and for ease of use if a walker or wheel chair is needed (my sister) but it's horrid to walk on day in and day out!

However, it is probably out of the question for us. I cannot do the work you did, and we need ours done and over with. Like Steph says, doing something to "get by" for now is out of the question, and we are both too old to do an entire house, even one that tops out at 1000 sq ft. And don't cha kno, every kitchen I've looked at has a WOOD FLOOR on it? Sigh.

The present wood floors are so old and dilapidated and have been sanded down so much already, that it was considered impractical to redo them. And, it would make it hard to find anything like them for the kitchen and new flooring in the redone back porch when it is lifted to equal the rest of the house.

I am tired of having my floors all different levels. Up two inches here, down 4 inches there, and all the baseboards have to come off too and be replaced with real New England style high baseboards. The stuff down as baseboards now is NOT a baseboard, it is sort of window facings and they are so flimsy and beat up, pulling them off will improve the look. DH is putting in a 6-inch wide crown molding which is very plain, in our master bedroom; he already did the crown molding in the front bedroom, which now serves as our study, and is where we keep our books, both computers, and watch TV. I brought the TV down from his house up north, and now we don't even watch the 42" TV which is on the mantle in the living room. What do we need 2 TVs for in this house anyway? My new HP TouchSmart computer can act as a 23" TV in the bedroom if we need a second one. So now I can think about removing the big TV and putting up some good art work in its place. Maybe it can go to the Teahouse. Yeah.......just came to me! :) Hang it high on the wall out there, big enough to see from my loft.

Well, I am still looking into the issues of wood or tile, which will go where best, and also about the roofline on the new back area which will be 6 feet wide finished width and about 20+ feet long. Split between the kitchen and the master bedroom.

Fiddledeedee, I'll think about that tomorrow. :)

We found the sawmills by doing searches for cracker style log homes, and also heart pine. Fortunately we were able to get the wood locally, but we would have gone up into Georgia if we had to.

The overall cost has not been any more, even with labor and finishing costs, than when we did full house tile in our last home. It's not "cheap", but in the whole span of the rest of our lives, is much less expensive than continually replacing carpet, engineered wood that wears out, etc. We will never have to replace our floor.

In the long haul this is most cost effecive and economical.

We also chose a natural tung oil finish, (all products purchased from the Real Milk Paint Company) despite pressure from those who are polyurethane pushers (read big profits). There is no perfect floor finish, but tung oil is easily repaired, is not dependant on someone else doing it for us, and does not outgas poison continually. It is completely non toxic.

Keep in mind that other products will outgas all kinds of nasty stuff. We also found the whole deal hasn't cost any more than buying something prefabricated from a flooring outfit. It was definitely more work though with finding good people to do installation and handling all the decisions and purchases ourselves. No regrets. The floor is gorgeous....and totally 100% natural.

I know pine is available in the northeast....basically anywhere pine trees will grow. We grow yellow pine in Florida...white pine comes from up north so we have the yellow. It's stronger anyway.

Where not available from a local sawmill, perhaps it can be ordered and shipped in for less than you think....I don't know for sure. We were able to have our interior doors made out of cypress from a carpenter in Ohio. It didn't cost any more than buying wood doors from Lowes, and the quality is WAY better.

Basically it takes research and driving ones self nuts before reaching a good decision. Remeber that HEART pine is what you want for floors...not "normal" pine. It's too soft, unless you happen to like having more "patina".

There is so many layers of linoleum or tile or whatever on our current kitchen that I could not tell what the subfloor in there is like. In the rest of the house, our subfloors are tongue and groove pine laid on the diagonal. Then the 1-1/4 inch strips of oak which look awful with some really dark mahogany stain which was put down so it slopped up on the old baseboards. I cannot take those dark floors at all. It was a bad job poorly done, whoever did the staining.

The problem with them is not the width of the boards, it is that we will be having to raise the level of the floor in the back porch which was built about 4 to 6 inches lower than the main house. It was NOT anything except an open porch where they had the water heater, screening on the upper portion, and a small added-on breaker box. A shed roof, and the washer/dryer were also located in the area, but half exposed to the weather. The floor was only the boards like you find on most exterior porches, with a slope away from the house. When we decided to upgrade that porch to inside space, we put down plywood underlayment and stickyback vinyl tiled over it and the old kitchen to make-do. DH put in a couple of new circuits for the big French-door fridge/freezer, and the stacking washer/dryer. And we took out the old gas water heater and put an electric one in a tiny enclosure backed up to the fridge, as a temporary water heater.

So given all that, we plan to strip off all the kitchen floor layers and see what is there. The old porch will have to be refloored and raised, and extended across the back of the house further, to increase the size of the Master suite, and that will have to be LEVEL WITH THE FLOORS IN THE BEDROOM. But, I do not want tile in that part of the bedroom, I want it all alike, and I do not want varying levels in my floors. Trip hazards are not something I wish to build into the new setup.

So. I am wanting to put in one continuous flooring material for the house, with the exception of the two bathrooms and the master walkin closet, which have porcelain tile in them. They are about 3/4 inches higher than the existing wood floors. The wood flooring I want to install can sit ON TOP OF THAT FLOOR. DH suggests it go in perpendicular to the direction of the current boards. He also says that water and pet pee will stain between the cracks and thus spread beneath the top finish in a couple of years.

I'm looking at all the pictures of WOODEN FLOORS THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE, and I like it very much. I'll need to put in a different wood than what we have, because of the increased area and there is no match to this wood, nor is there enough of it left to sand and refinish. And, after that might be tried, no guarantee that the result will be anything even similar to what I want.

Now, Sandy, I will be asking my contractor, who is the same one who did our closet/tub bumpout, if he is aware of any source of the heart pine here in south Alabama. I'm not that far from where you are in North Florida, and perhaps the source you used could also be available to me. You can email me with the information if you don't mind.

At least, checking out the heart pine is worth it to me, since DH is concerned about the Bellawood staining. I've seen old homes here in Mobile with 200 year old or MORE, heart pine and cypress floors. Actually, old cypress is my favorite wood in the world, but pine is the thing I'm thinking would be more suitable to maintaining the feel of this stucco cottage which can take a lot of hard knocks. Of all the options that might serve this particular house, I am coming down to two: Bellawood Select Ash wide plank 3/4 inch thick, and then the heart pine with the tungoil finish, also wide plank 3/4 inch thick.

Question to Sandy: Have your floors developed gaps between the boards? How long did they season before installation?
Were they kiln dried?

I am still hanging with a wood floor in the kitchen. I'm not a perfectionist, and can deal with dings and such, and also don't mind floors as long as I don't have to get on my hands and knees to clean it. So that puts me back into the Bellawood with occasional area rugs in high use areas.

We bought all of our wood from a sawmill in Williston, Fl. The company is Cracker Style Log Homes. If you do a search it should come up. If not, e-mail me and I'll look the contact information up for you. Bubba is the owner.

The wood is all kiln dried, and we have NO gaps in the floor. However, I made it very clear with our installer to cull out anything that wasn't absolutely perfect. He is also very experienced with heart pine installations, including reclaimed wood, so he is excellent. The installer makes a world of difference, and it worth spending whatever time it takes to find someone who knows what they are doing.

There is a certain waste factor, so extra wood has to be purchased to allow for that.

This floor has exceeded my expectations, and will bring much joy the rest of our lives.

Bubba ships log cabin kits all over the U.S., so I am sure you could arrange to have wood shipped. We did not buy a kit, but we did buy all of the heart pine, and all of the cypress for our home from him. He also does custom milling.

Sandy

as you mentioned later in your post, that is very dangerous. Bad enough for the younger set but us getting up there in yrs folks sure don't want to deal with anything like that!

"The stuff down as baseboards now is NOT a baseboard, it is sort of window facings and they are so flimsy and beat up, pulling them off will improve the look."

you're describing what's in my mfg home too. Maybe that's what they normally put in (if someone doesn't upgrade when buying) but it is horrible! ugh! I plan to replace it - at least most of it. I'm thinking I might short cut by not changing it out in the closets, behind the fridge, behind the huge storage cab going into my craft/store room, the one in the laundry room etc. but, all of the other that is showing has got to go. I don't want to SEE it. There isn't much in the kitchen or baths either so i don't think it'll be too major to do. I know it'll take ME a long time but will be worth it.

I really think you should be ok with a good wood floor in your kitchen - it's not like you have little kids or gkids living there spilling milk/juice etc. or like me who does continually drop and spill things.

deciding on the flooring is a major pain - there's cons to most of the options. I've looked at some of the 'fake' (whatever - it's not vinyl and not stone or real wood) tile types and the fine print mentions it causing respiratory problems etc. - gee whiz! I have problems with a number of things that way so I sure don't want to chance putting it down and then not being able to breathe. and every time this past yr i've set aside some money for a room or 2 the car needs major $ work done and a vet bill running several hundred hits me. It's getting rather tiring actually. I eyed some area type rugs at W the other day for 20.00 each (5x7) and thought maybe I should just buy a bunch and put down for now. Then go room by room after I save up again. I really don't want all the furniture in on it tho.

I did find a flooring place (a bit far from me tho) that said they have lots of vinyl sheet remnants. I'm gonna try to go there next wk and see if I can get enough to do the closet/pantry floors so I can at least stack boxes in those and not have to move it all to floor it later. It really won't matter what's on those floors. I figure it'll be cheap enough and I can cut it myself and glue tack in and call it good. do not come here and want to inspect my closets - lol!

Sandy - why aren't we seeing pics of your new place going up (gone up?). I feel neglected and shunned...deprived... (maybe depraved too).

lol!

I love the regional styles Americans built in different sections of the country. Like the cape up in New England, then the Cajuns and Creoles adapted the cape, really put it up on stilts to let breezes and flood waters roll beneath them. And over in Florida, porches all around, using the wood available, and doing at least piers off the ground for the foundations. I bet you have a metal roof too, Sandy?

BTW, I looked up Williston FL last night, on Google Earth, and saw it was near places I've been to a long time ago. Like Cedar Key and Yankeetown on the Crystal River, totally gorgeous area! And you are probably somewhere near those areas, which they are beginning to call the "Emerald Coast."
It is probably the last remaining unspoiled area of Florida. If I were going there, I'd definitely locate in the bend, behind the shallow water above Clearwater and away from the hubbub of Orlando, Ocala, Gainesville. Your style home will be there and lovely, for a good century to come, unlike some of the quickly built tract homes.

Please send me via the email address shown on my profile page any information about your floors that you can spare.
I'll then present my case to the DH.
Thanks.

Quality of the sub floor is also part of the floor being a good install or not. It must be level and of good quality.

A few coats of tung oil will make your floor waterproof. Naturally, standing water shouldn't be left there, but done properly it will protect the wood from normal spaltters. A flood in the kitchen may be an issue, I don't know. Have never had one. I suspect flooding would ruin most anything except perhaps tile. I wouldn't do a tile floor again if I got it free. It's awful on the joints. Special mats are a pain and I hated dealing with them.

Sandy