We’re trying to soak up all the things that we love about this house before we move on to our next big project, and we realized that our floors make us inordinately happy. And it’s not just the fact that they’re mostly hardwood in a nice mocha color, it’s the whole cohesive flooring thing in general. Seriously, I never thought these words would come out of my mouth (because it honestly sounds like I’m a motivational speaker or someone who takes design way too seriously) but… cohesive flooring is a game changer. Really. It is.
Our house used to have eight different flooring materials and seams. Think about that for a second. Eight! All on one modestly sized level. Talk about chopping things up and making them feel even smaller. There was faux stone linoleum in the laundry nook, yellowed vinyl tile in the half bath, a sheet of dated blue linoleum in the kitchen, thin ratty carpet in the full bathroom, faux parquet linoleum flooring in the den, another thin ratty carpet in the sunroom, and hardwoods in about the other half of the house (thank goodness).
You can see a few more floor before & after pics here (although admittedly we weren’t the best at taking photos back in the early days). But the point is that now our entire house is all dark solid hardwood (some that we installed during our kitchen reno, and some that we got refinished to match those new hardwoods) along with a similarly toned mocha marble floor in the full bath (there’s the same mocha hardwood in the half-bath to keep everything cohesive).
It’s amazing how much more of an open feeling it lends to the whole house. Of course it’s totally a subjective thing (and we can see how it’s fun to play around with different flooring colors and materials if that’s you thing), but as far as this small home full of small rooms is concerned, similarly toned seamless flooring was one of the best decisions we could have made. So we thought we’d pass that tip along to anyone else who’s slowly but surely working with a small space full of an inordinate amount of linoleum, nappy carpet, or faux parquet. It might not be the cheapest home improvement undertaking, but you can find some pretty great deals. We got our new hardwoods cheaper than most laminate flooring that big box stores sell thanks to Lumber Liquidators, and we only paid $1.50 a square foot to get our existing stuff refinished. The point of this diatribe? Life’s too short to live with crazy mismatched floors.
And so ends a weird little Friday morning brain dump of sorts. What’s up with the floors in your house? Do they all match or have some sort of relationship with each other? Does every room in your house have a different floor personality? Come on, the least we can do is see this weird floor tangent through…
Allison says
That makes so much sense now that I read it, but it’s not something I would have necessarily picked up on by myself…so thanks for the tip!
My home has carpet in the living rooms and bedrooms, fake wood right by the entryway and linoleum in the kitchen. It would definitely help the flow of things to find some cohesion in here!
Terra says
My mom has ALWAYS wanted hardwood floors, so I thought about helping her pay for them so she can finally get them, BUT my grandma lives with us. So to my question, are they slick? We’re just afraid of her falling and that’s the main thing that’s held us back from getting them.
Carole says
we just installed new flooring in the sunroom in a similar tone to our ‘great room’, and it makes a lot of visual impact, and ties the two rooms together. I only wish I had done it sooner!
http://buckcanuck.blogspot.com/2010/10/sunroom-flooring-reveal.html
We also got our flooring at Lumber Liquidators. Our only complaint was that the online ordering system was awful! We had it shipped to our local store, but were never notified that our flooring had arrived, and they seemed to have no way of tracking our order. The flooring itself (and folks at the store) were great, but perhaps it’s better to order it in person?
Nikki says
Hi S & J!
I’m curious about the floor situation in your new place, and if it needs updating, what your plans are? I have a feeling you will stick with hardwood floors, but perhaps in a different color?
Really excited to see what you do with the new place… and glad to hear it will not be an exact copy of your current home. We will always have the archives if we want inspiration for a light, airy, beachy vibe!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Nikki,
We’re still pondering the floor sitch in the new place. There are nice hardwoods in some areas but also everything from real parquet to laminate and vinyl tile and even some real tile in certain rooms- so we’ll definitely be making some changes. Oh the possibilities…
xo,
s
Sugar Cookie says
Our new home has carpet and tile, but we did our best to match their colorings and it looks great! The carpet color is called Sand Swept and the tile is Taupe. Our kitchen/dining room/living room area is all one big space, open concept, and having flooring colors that match (even if they are not the same kind of flooring) makes a huge difference in that space! Good tips :)
Jen says
Funny you should post this now. I just tiled my kitchen, hall, and powder room. I’m debating now whether to do the rest of the first level (dining room, entry, living room) in either hardwood or laminate, or whether to just do the dining room and entry in hard flooring and put new carpet in the living room. Does anyone out there have thoughts about keeping the living room carpeted or doing hard floors throughout?
Katie says
My favorite thing about our house is the lack of carpet int he downstairs and the different floors throughout. We have great wood laminate through most of the downstairs that we get complimented on all the time! I think the floor can add so much personality to a room!
Jenn from Much to My Delight says
Agreed! There is nothing more beautiful than cohesive hardwood flooring throughout a house. I have large white tiles in my apartment throughout and I hated them at first, but now I realize how much smaller the space would look if it were carpeted. Does your new house come equipped with hardwood, or will that be one of the first changes?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Jenn,
Scroll back a few comments for that info. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Beth@Just{Heart}It says
I can see your point. We have carpet everywhere but the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms (and how nasty would those rooms be with carpet?!). But I really don’t mind it at all. The carpet bumps up to only one of those each time, so there’s only two floorings visible at a time – sounds like you had many more than that! But I’m good with what we have. We lived in a condo for a few years that had wood floor over the whole downstairs, and I hated it. I wear shoes only when absolutely necessary and can’t stand feeling stuff on my feet all the time. Living with hardwood living room and bedroom floors would drive me insane. I know the dirt is there in the carpet, but I can vacuum much less often than I had to clean the hardwood. Does all the dirt bother you? Do you clean the floors a lot?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Beth,
Really??? You had to vacuum less often than cleaning your hardwood floors? We actually clean our hardwood floors very rarely (and only use a little hand-vac around the perimeter of the room every week or so most of the time to get all the hair, dust bunnies, and anything else we track in. Cleaning carpets seemed way more high maintenance to us (we lived in a carpeted apartment before moving here) but maybe it’s just a subjective thing? Oh and we take our shoes off when we come into the house and have some door mats in the back to catch stuff that the dog might otherwise drag in. It’s actually a really low maintenance choice for us.
xo,
s
sally says
100% agree with the whole floor unifying thing! We just moved into our new home in May and the floors were the first thing to tackle. The downstairs had that orange stain to the oak, and our office was carpet, half bath was linoleum. We ripped out the carpet and linoleum and had all the floors sanded and stained a beautiful mocha color similar to yours. Love how much more open it is! The upstairs was all carpet, which we ripped out and then replaced with wood. The only thing in hindsight we should have down was to get the pre-finished flooring for the upstairs first and restained the downstairs to match that instead of the other way around. Anyway, thanks to Lumber Liquidators we were able to get a pretty close match for our upstairs and the price of course was amazing!! Our downstairs laundry room is still linoleum though. Wish we would have just gone with wood there too. You all obviously have wood in your laundry nook right?
PS- question about your jute rugs bc we have a lot too. Did you just vaccumm them like crazy to elimniate all the “jute dust” underneath? I know its just from the fibers, but it looks like a pile of dirt whenever I lift them up! Yuck! I love the look, but not the feeling that their is a bunch of dustiness lurking under them.
I really enjoy your blog–great work!!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Sally,
Yup, we have hardwoods in the laundry nook. Love ’em. As for the jute rugs, we actually have owned many of them and generally don’t have an issue with excess dust (yes, some make a bit of dust under them, which we vacuum from time to time, but nothing too crazy). We have noticed that two of ours tend to make more dust than the other two. So it might depend on the maker, how tight they’re woven, etc. Oh but we did replace one of them (read about that here) because of intensely annoying shedding- but that wasn’t normal at all. Thankfully none of our other jute babies have done that to us.
xo,
s
Rachel says
We are really lucky that our circa 1924 rental home has oak hardwoods in almost the entire house, and they’re in good condition. The stain on them is a bit more yellow and light than I’d prefer, but they’re in good shape at least with no stains (and definitely give our modest home a more cohesive look). We have newish builder beige tile in the kitchen and original white hexagonal tile in the bathrooms (in decent shape). Definitely the best overall floors of any place I have lived!
JME says
We are currently working on the flooring in our house. When we moved in there were new hardwoods in the kitchen/den and hallways but I wanted more. So we had the carpet in our bedroom pulled up to reveal the not bad hardwoods under neath that are very similar in color to the new ones. We are currently pulling up and refinishing the floors in the other two bedrooms. Love the hardwoods much more than the carpet that was over them.
Kimberly says
It cracks me up that the picture you have of your old den-into-laundry room has a handyman in it! :-P
YoungHouseLove says
That’s Al! The realtor who introduced us to our lovely home! We love him for that! And the reason he’s wet is because it was pouring the day we first set eyes on our house. Funny enough we also found our new house on a rainy day!
xoxo,
s
Jamie says
Any suggestions on flooring options for an upstairs bath in a very old house with uneven floors? The floor kind of peaks in the middle of the bathroom. There’s probably a 1.5 inch shift in height. The bathroom came with the kind of linoleum tiles that you’d see in a school classroom and I’m itching to tear them out. But regular tile may crack with the uneven surface, so any ideas for flooring options? Are there any classy linoleums out there? Cork maybe?? My husband and I have been stumped with this one.
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Jamie,
We were going to suggest cork too so maybe that’s a good option? You also might be able to get a handyman to help level the floors so you have more options (self leveling concrete maybe?). Good luck!
xo,
s
Audrey says
One of the biggest drawbacks to our home is that it has baby blue carpet in almost every room. It makes it so hard to decorate! We’re hoping to replace it sometime in the next year or so, but for now we are focusing on a complete bathroom remodel. We just laid new tile floor that I love, which replaced the off-white and lavender (!) that was in there before. Gotta love these older homes!
Erin B. Inspired says
My entire house is dark hardwood, similar to yours, except my kitchen which is a lighter wood. I kind of wish we would have done all the floors the same color. The floors in the kitchen are new while the rest are original to the house. The difference in colors kind of points out that they are new and seems to separate the kitchen from the rest of the house.
Ashley says
Okay so I know this is totally random and unrelated to this post but I’m just catching up on my YHL for the week. Enteway…Where did your sponsors go?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Ashley,
Your computer must be running some ad blocking software, which has made our sponsors invisible! Maybe you’re at work or just updated or installed something like that at home? Hope that explains it!
xo,
s
Kelley says
The house we purchased was just lovely when we walked in. The previous owners had redone the main living area with beautiful hardwoods and the kitchen with ceramic tile. Then I guess they ran out of money bc they put ugly mismatched laminate wood in the connected office, a different ugly mismatched laminate in one of the bedrooms, left the original tile in one bathroom (which we liked), carpet in all of the other bedrooms, and the kicker… totally different carpet in the other bathroom (let’s not even mention the orange shag carpet used to line the bathroom cabinets). 7 total different floors, which we are slowly working to reduce. It really makes you wonder what people were thinking!
bb says
i agree with this post. i never really gave it much thought before, but most of the floor in our house are the same off white tile except for the three bedrooms (which all have matching carpet) and the kitchen, dining room and laundry rooms which are all adjoined and have their own matching tile.
Amber says
We are so jealous! We have 3 different carpets and 3 different linoleums on our first floor alone! Can’t wait to change to (hopefully) stained concrete throughout the downstairs. Someday…
Liz H says
The old (107 years old!) country farm house that my family is about to move into has vinyl flooring in the mudroom, kitchen, and dining room, original hardwoods in the living room, carpeting in the 3 bedrooms, white tile in the half bath, and beige tile in the one full bathroom. All in under 1500 sq feet! The flooring is uneven, mainly in the dining room which is in the center of the house and connects to nearly all of the other rooms, so even though I’d love to put in hardwoods throughout I’m not sure that’s an option. You’re moving into your new house about 2 months before we move so I’m excited on getting some new ideas before the big move!
Jenn L @ Peas and Crayons says
LOVE the flooring in your (old?) house! My rental is laminate-chic (bleh) but someday it will be gorgeous dark bamboo floors with cool grey slate in the kitchen and bathrooms. So until then, i’ll keep dreaming =)
xoXOxo
Marianne says
We have tile in the entryway and two bathrooms, a nubby sisal carpet on the stairs and in the office, linoleum in the kitchen (bleh), and gorgeous parquet in the rest of the house. I’d like to replace the kitchen floor at some point (mostly because it’s so light and shows every drip and scuff), but the rest of the house is good.
J says
Wow 8 floors! We thought we were bad with 5. We ended up installing a cream marble throughout the entire house except one bathroom. I love the uniformity of it. You can ways change area rugs.
Ericka says
I WISH I had the same flooring throughout most of my small ranch house. We have at least 10 year old carpet throughout most our living space and laminate in our family room and porcelain tile in our master bath and kitchen and vinyl flooring in our hall bath. What is up with people putting a different color carpet in every bedroom – ARGHHH! I can’t wait to get rid of the hodge podge of flooring – I wish we could do all hardwood, but that doesn’t seem likely. We don’t have that kind of moolah.
Alexis @ Our Inspired Home says
I agree that your wood floors are beautiful! My husband and I are very tired of the floors in our home. We have a two story with a terrible white tile/white grout combo in the kitchen and entry that is impossible to keep clean. Then we have beige carpets in the dining and living room that shows every speck of dirt that’s tracked in. I don’t mind carpet in the bedrooms, but after our kitchen remodel coming up in the spring, the rest of the floors are going to be replaced.
Snickrsnack Katie says
I have a home very similar to yours. I have original hardwoods in the entire house where the bedrooms and hallway are – except for the bathrooms. And then – the kitchen has craptastic tile and the living room – OMG – the living room has crappily installed berber carpet. We rent for now, but whenever we decide to buy – we will be SO making sure our home has all hardwoods!
mike @HA says
I’ve always admired your floors :) We’re lucky enough to have a house with 90-year-old original hardwood throughout the main level but over the house’s history is was almost completely covered with linoleum and carpet. We’re back to all natural and I was able to refinish the wood for only 60 cents/sqft! Next we’re looking at the basement that has plywood and 3 different kinds of vinyl. Time for some cohesion!!
Lisa says
The apartment we’re renting at the moment which is already tiny and has only four rooms (kitchen, lounge, bathroom and bedroom) has 5 different floor covers. Very strange. It’s so hard not to rip them all out and give the whole place a renovation. We keep telling ourselves it’s not our place and it’s only for a short time but the decor in here is like living in a museum a perfectly preserved 13th century home….really scary.
bex says
I am insanely jealous of your floors. Our place has crappy builder’s-grade junk carpet upstairs, with a nicer carpet downstairs. Oddly enough, only our kitchen has wood floors. We’ve toyed with the idea of doing the entire upper floor in hardwood, but worry about the resaleability (is that even a word??) in chilly Minnesota by doing that. The kitchen floor is done in golden oak (blech!), and we wonder about whether or not we’d be able to sand ‘er down and refinish in a darker tone with the rest of the level if/when we put in hardwood flooring. Any tips for figuring out if we can sand and stain it??
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Bex,
Nearly all hardwood floors can be refinished so just follow the link in our post about refinishing to learn more about how that process went for us. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Lili says
We just bought our first house this summer, and it is an older home (1955). One of the things that sold me was that, even though buried under carpets in three rooms, there was continuous, beautiful original hardwoods in EVERY room of the main floor, aside from kitchen and bath. It’s so bad that I even (don’t tell anyone this) ripped a piece of the carpet away from the corners in each room to check and make sure that A. There was hardwood, and B. It was in good condition. Of course, that was after we were in love with the house, and about to write the contract… We knew we would get it anyway… but I just had to know. 6 months later, we have not pulled the carpets out yet, because I am stocking up on pretty rugs to protect the floors first (kids & cats, you know…).
susanne says
Your timing is funny….Just last night we had a “work friend” over to our new house. While we were downstairs she was oooing and ahhhing over our beautiful original douglas fir floors. The first thing she said when we walked up to the second floor was “Ohhhhh, you have the same beautiful floors up here too…!”
We were lucky…all we had to do was refinish 80 years of wear off of ours. I couldn’t agree more with your “brain dump”! The consistency makes everything flow so beautifully.
Krysta says
my home is a mismatch…hardwood, 3 types of carpet (4 if you count the tiny bit hiding in the coat closet), two kinds of ceramic tile (one straight from 1968), vinyl tile, & painted concrete. Someday I hope to have much more hardwood & matching tile.
Liz says
I’m in a rental home that has gorgeous hardwoods in the living and kitchen areas, then we get into the bedrooms and it has 8-year-old/seen-better-days carpeting. The previous residents had dogs. Any ideas for an inexpensive “alternative” to ripping up the carpets at our own expense?
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Liz,
Maybe using area rugs? We definitely believe that rugs over carpet can work if they’re done well! Or you can convince your landlord that it’s time for them to be replaced- and maybe offer some incentive for him to do that (like you’ll repaint all the trim white for him to give the whole place a refreshed look if he pays for the carpet replacement). Although if there’s hardwood under those carpets in good condition, the “expense” of ripping them up is just the time you’ll spend doing it. But ripping up carpet is free if you like what’s under it! Good luck!
xo,
s
Jess! says
My 1955 house came with all hardwood (mostly) (which I love) that needs work. A lot of work – which is fine because I learned how to refinish hardwood and it’s been a super fun endeavour.
The only room that doesn’t have hardwood is my kitchen… which has carpet. Quite possibly the ugliest carpet i’ve ever seen. Unfortunately there’s not been a chance to get rid of it yet. what would you recommend for a kitchen, that abuts onto hardwood?
Jaimie says
I never realized how much of an impact floors have, but it is so true! I love the colour of your hardwood. It has such a beautiful tone!
Sara says
John & Sherry,
My sister is gonna deliver a baby soon. You guys are super good in doing all the research. Just want to know what car seat you guys purchased?. Please advise.
Thanks
Sara
YoungHouseLove says
We have a Chicco Keyfit 30. Love it.
xo,
s
Rach says
The most amazing flooring u gave ever lived with was in a house we rented for a while when I was in high school. The living room ad hallway had pretty normal beige carpet, but my bedroom had lime green shag, the spare room had harvest gold shag, and the kitchen had avacado and turquoise linoleum. Yes, you read that correctly. Avacado. And turquoise. The seventies-tastic flooring would have been interesting by itself, but combined with the half-house makeover of updated carpet it was intensely bizarre. Since it was a rental and we couldn’t change it, my mom and I just had fun with it. And now, writing this post, I just realized I feel knd of nostalgic for it- we used to crack each other up with ideas to “embrace the ambiance.”
TEM says
I’m definitely a fan of uniform flooring, especially in small houses/apartments! My current apartment has the original 100-year-old solid wood floors in all but the bathroom (which has ceramic tile that was new when I moved in), and though the wood is in pretty rough shape, I wouldn’t trade it for anything!
The worst flooring I’ve ever had was an all-tile ground floor apartment–the tile itself wasn’t so bad (it was easy to clean!), but it was ruined by the bad patch-jobs that had been done over the years–random tiles throughout the apartment had been replaced, and they didn’t match in color! Ah, the joys of renting! :-P
Kate (Southern Belle Simple) says
I would love to have hardwood floors….for now I just have carpet but it is the same throughout so it gives a more open feel. My next place will have hardwood for sure!
Sarah says
Sherry,
My husband and I also reside in the Richmond area and have just purchased a foreclosed home that needs some “work” (we’re kind of in the same boat as you guys!).
Would you mind emailing me your recommendation for a contractor that refinishes/stains hardwood floors?
THANKS!
Sarah
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Sarah,
Here’s a post with that info at the bottom: https://www.younghouselove.com/drumroll-please/
Good luck!
xo,
s
Rach says
Oops. Sorry for typos in last post. I’m typing on my phone with my sleeping baby in one hand :-)
Alisa says
We have six different flooring materials in our little ranch. One of those is the ORIGINAL shag carpeting from the 70s. ugh. We’ve been ripping that up though and only have one more room to get it out of here for good. Our goal is to rip up all the floors and stain the concrete underneath until we can afford to put hardwood throughout (yeah, that might be a long ways out!). I’m hoping if we get the floors darker that the walls might look taller? Everything’s really light right now so it just looks like we live in a box. Here’s hoping it works..
Kristen says
Hi! I wish we lived where hardwoods are a normal. We live in Florida so we actually don’t see much hardwood in other peoples houses. In this part of Florida it’s mainly nice tile that you see in homes, and laminate. But we have been thinking long and hard about our flooring options. We have a 3 bedroom 2 bath house. 9 rooms, and it’s an open floor plan so it’s in plain site and they are all completely different with these ugly cheap aluminum thresholds. Ewww!!! Lol but there are so many other projects to be done here that it’s going to be a while until the floor…we need to fix the really bad garage conversion to the living room that the previous owners took and and didn’t succeed to well, and the ugly laminate cabinets and countertops need help too. Along with every other room in the house needing something! Phew. Thanks for your site, it’s getting a work put from my hubby and I. Lol happy moving!!
Rachel @ The Avid Appetite says
I love your dark floors. We moved into a place with brand new hardwood floors, but it’s a bit lighter than we’d like – we’re thinking of having ’em stained!
Viv says
You are so right about the cohesiveness, especially in a small space. It’s inexpensive to re-do the floors in powder rooms and entryways and laundry rooms so they give a better flow.
We once looked at a big house and the upstairs bedrooms each had a different colour of bright shag (lemon yellow, lime green, psycho purple, etc) carpeting.
Kate says
Our house has hardwood throughout the downstairs with white(!) tile in the kitchen. What a horrible idea, white shows everything. I’m trying to convince the man to extend the hardwood into the kitchen and stain the floors a darker color like yours. I also want to paint our dingy wood cabinets white. Any suggestions on how to convince him??!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Kate,
Maybe this post will help? https://www.younghouselove.com/email-answer-have-husband-will-decorate/
xo,
s
Shannon says
We haven’t been in our current home for very long, and there are 11 different flooring materials here, in only 9 rooms! Yes, you read that correctly. The diningroom had a carpet, eww. We just replaced that with the wood floor that will go through our whole house. There is a mudroom/laundry room/bar area that has 2 different carpets in it. The livingroom has a nasty carpet, and from there you can see the hallway on one side that goes to the kitchen with fake wood tiles(ew), a small hall on the other side that goes strait into another room and that room and the small hall each have different carpet, neither of them the same as the livingroom. All the rooms will have the same wood floor when I am done except for my boys room which has new carpet so we will keep that until they destroy it lol and possibly the bathroom, it might get stone tile. My hubby works in a bluestone quarry and I think he wants a part of that in our home so we might do that in the bathroom. Wow, this is a long post and I’m rambling. Sorry about that!
Dawn SC says
This was a helpful post for me and made me appreciate our house a bit more – I think I was taking my cohesive flooring for granted! The people we bought from had just installed birch floors throughout the entire house. My only complaint is that I think it’s one of the softer birch varieties, since it seems to get worn a bit quicker than other hardwood floors. But, it actually is wearing nicely now (I was a bit more anal about the floors when we first moved in since they were brand new…). And the beautiful color variations – just enough to be interesting without looking odd – more than make up for it!
Beth@Just{Heart}It says
Well, I guess that just goes to show that each person prefers different things – a great thing about design is that it’s so personal, right? But yes, I vacuum once a week, whereas the hardwood (especially in the kitchen) needs it two or three times.
YoungHouseLove says
Wow! That’s too funny! You’re definitely right about things like that being subjective and personal. Whatever works!
xo,
s