Alternative to Red Oak Floors?
I’m redoing my floors and want to find an alternative to the ubiquitous red Oak. Has anyone experiences with Maple or Ash? I hear Maple has a tendency to shrink more than oak and also shows the gaps more readily. Ash I don’t know know much about but like the color.
I’m redoing my floors and want to find an alternative to the ubiquitous red Oak. Has anyone experiences with Maple or Ash? I hear Maple has a tendency to shrink more than oak and also shows the gaps more readily. Ash I don’t know know much about but like the color.
I would definitely check into using a redwood. They are BEAUTIFUL if done with a medium color stain, anywhere from sedona red to colonial maple (minwax stains). And I’d definitely recommend a gel stain, but don’t stain until everything is installed for the continuous look.
for a few things different look at #2 grade maple. Very pretty with birds eyes and lots of character. And maple is hard as nails.
Also look at cork. Beautiful and very durable and a dream to walk on. Being resilient, it does not dent. Available in many shades & colors.
Joe
I know there is a good mason that just moved to the Park Slope area that does artistic and quality work, as well as basic masonry. His website is http://www.arnello.com I have seen his work on Long Island, and it is really nice.
Joanna
I have used bamboo in my kids room. it is solid tongue and groove 5/8 thick and came with a factory semi gloss finish. It has been down a little over a year and looks brand new. It gets nailed down like an oak floor. Its technically harder than oak but the guy installing our crib dropped his hammer and left a dent. I think it looks cool though. I don’t know how it gets refinished in the future. Bamboo is really big in all aspects of home and furniture design right now because its so “green”, meaning its a sustainable building material. It is in the grass family. I have seen it sold unfinished. It has two grain choices, one with the knots and one without. I think its the way they laminate the pieces together. It comes in two colors, lighter (like maple) and smoked. There is a flooring showroom on Third Avenue in the twenties, under the BQE. It looks bad from the outside but the showroom is amazing. They must have a hundred kinds of wood on display including custom parquet with elaborate inlays. For those of you with deep pockets i think they have zebra wood flooring. I think they are closed on Saturdays for the Sabbath. When people see our floor they always say wow, so thats bamboo! We have our trim work painted white. I think it looks fresh.
I understand that bamboo is only available as a laminate. I’ve heard that there can be some off-gassing of nasty chemicals from bamboo flooring. Any truth to this?
LG-
Actually, from the limited research that I’ve done since this thread began, I’ve learned that bamboo flooring is apparently harder than Oak. It’s definitely more stable and more sustainable (though not as as much as salvaging would be). I guess the real issue is that Bamboo can have a pretty distictive grain to it that is certainly not traditional- at least not for the average late 19th-early 20th century brooklyn residence. But I might be swayed if I were replacing my floors.
-pk
I’ve been wondering about bamboo — have you had it long, and has it been beat up? I understand it’s pretty soft, but then so are my pine floors….
We needed a new parlor floor and installed recycled douglas fir and then used heart pine in our guest bathroom. Both are very beautiful but I have to give the nod to the heart pine which is both better looking and significantly harder than the doug fir. We bought the wood from Pioneer Millworks (www.pioneermillowrks.com) who offer a wide range of recycled flooring in different species and grades (we chose the vertical grain because of its appearance is a little more formal and thus more suitable for a brownstone we felt). I dealt with a guy there called Jared. He was a sweetheart and everything went without a hitch. Our floor guy was very impressed by the quality of the boards they supplied.
we used bamboo (the light colored kind), and we love it.