The Great Floor Debate Part II

Hello again! Wow, thanks everyone for all your great input on our flooring dilemma! It is awesome to come to blogland and find so many people who share a passion for the same thing, who have different experiences and ideas to contribute. Thank you!!

For anyone just joining in, you can catch up here...but basically we are trying to figure out the best way to solve this problem:

No, your eyes do not deceive you...that's 4 different types of flooring in our downstairs. Yikes! This means we have awkward and unsightly transitions like this between the living room and entryway/kitchen:

And like this between the entryway/kitchen and the dining room:

The great floor debate started because we really need/want to replace the carpet in the living room, family room and stairway (did I mention it's nasty?). First we considered new carpet...these will be play areas eventually when we are hopefully blessed with children (that's a whole other post!). But now we are leaning more towards hardwood for the ease of cleaning and general aesthetic. (Can any of you moms out there chime in on carpet vs. hardwood for kids? We would of course have area rugs in both rooms which would hopefully give us that soft, roll around on the floor with the kiddos feeling.) Plus if we put in new carpet, we would still have the same problem - too many types of flooring in one space.

{said nasty carpet in the living room}

So we assumed the next logical option would be to rip up the carpet and put down the same solid hardwood floors with a cherry finish that the previous owners installed in the kitchen and entryway. We found an extra box of hardwood in the garage, so we had a flooring guy we know search around until he found a supplier who could give us more of the same stuff. What we didn't realize was how expensive this stuff was...seems like the previous owners didn't skimp on their new floors. (Maybe they couldn't afford to continue them into the dining room?!) So, we could put the cherry floors in the living room and family room, it would just cost a lot. Which is totally fine, I completely see the value in this and think its worth it, its just that these are not the floors I would have chosen if I was starting from scratch. I really like them, they're a beautiful color, very unique...but not what I would choose if I had my druthers.

{the kitchen now}

Hmmm. So should we spend a whole lot of money on something we are only 75% happy with? Or should we spend less on floors we really like a whole lot? But then we are back to square one.

Paul mostly goes along with whatever I want in terms of home stuff (he has good taste...for a guy) but he has a strong opinion when it comes to what kind of hardwood floors he likes. He wants a dark finish. Darker than cherry. Like an espresso. I think Holly of Life in a Fun Lane's floors might be slightly too dark for him, but they are alot closer to what he wants than what we have.

{gorgeous, no?!}

So if a darker finish were all we were after, then I suppose we could:

1. install new dark finish hardwoods in the living room and family room that are the same width as the kitchen's cherry floors (3 1/4")

2. sand and refinish the kitchen/entryway floors in a darker stain to "match" the new new floors

3. get the dining room on board by either installing the new new dark wood floors in there or also sand and stain the oak to be darker even though it would be skinnier planks

What are your thoughts on this? Speaking of darker finishes, can anyone out there with dark floors comment on how hard they are to keep clean?

But, besides a darker finish (or maybe we should just say less red!), I would really love a wider board. And something with a bit more texture to it. Remember this pic I posted a while ago from Rate My Space?

I love how the wide floors look. I've been inspired a lot lately by a more coastal, farmhouse, pastoral manor vibe (I have no idea what to call this combo but I like it!). I think wide floors would help this look. (It's ok that we have a colonial, right?)

I found some solid hardwood I loved at Home Depot on one of my recent research trips (and it was a couple of dollars cheaper per square foot than the cherry floors). It wide, medium to dark brown, with a slightly darker variation at the edges of each board, and it has some distressed areas, dips to it that add that look that its been there forever. Then I realized they're pretty much the same floors that Janell of Isabella and Max Room's has! And that confirmed that I really like them, because this woman has style and supremely good taste. (Janell, hope you don't mind I borrowed a couple of pics - thanks!)

So if I had my druthers (at this current moment in time), these are the floors I would choose for our whole downstairs. But that would mean completely ripping up 2 other sets of floors (the old oak in the dining room and the new cherry in the kitchen). That seems sort of sad and that's still alot of money.

Do you think there's any way that we could get these new wide floors and still make our other wood floors somehow work? Sand and refinish both the other 2 sets...so then we would have 3 different width floors with similiar tones? Or we could also put the new wide floors in the dining room, then that would only leave the kitchen and foyer?

Now, completely unrelated to any of the options above, here's something else I'm throwing out there. I have considered...wait for it....don't freak...painting the dining room floor! Ever since I saw this image on design*sponge, I can't get the idea of a patterned painted floor somewhere in our house out of my head.

I know lots of people cringe when you mention painting over wood floors, but obviously in this instance, these dining room floors are going to be messed with either way. It would probably be bad for resale, but we are not going anywhere anytime soon, so I'd be doing this for me/us. Maybe it could be a temporary solution? Maybe I'm crazy?!

Ok, so I should probably stop typing soon and probably just post this already, right? If you are still with me at this point, what do you think about all this? Do any of these options seem viable? Does this post even make sense? What would you do? Have any of you out there had your wood floors restained a new color? Help!!!! Thanks so much, you guys are the best!