Hard Wood Debate

Originally Posted: February 11, 2009

If only anyone read my blog, I could solicit opinions and photographic evidence. That would be wonderful right about now.

My husband and I are currently struggling with a somewhat time-sensitive decision relating to hardwood. Originally when we thought we were superheros and would have the house totally moved in by now, this coming weekend was going to be our "hardwood installation weekend". Unfortunately, it turns out (surprise, surprise) we've bitten off more than we can chew.

We really really don't want to rush into such a big decision as hardwood, but at the same time, we're both very impatient, want the house done done and hubs has a 4-day weekend this weekend. Perfect! Except that we don't have a decision made as to what hardwood we want. Gul-ul-ul. So you see our dilemma.

So yesterday, I created this idea sheet-thingy to help narrow down our decision:

It has pseudo samples of our fixed elements (cabinets, countertop, entrance tile, etc) and a whack of different types of hardwood. They're mostly for the colour to see what we like. We've both always loved dark hardwood, but I'm worried that with our kitchen cabinets it's going to be too dark. (Yes-we're putting hardwood in the kitchen; it's not that weird, a lot of people do it).

So last night we hit up trusty Home Depot armed with a teeny sample of our cabinets for some more samples. We narrowed down our decision to a dark-ish wood that, when in our house, matches very nicely with our banisters (unintentionally) and a kind of caramel-y, peanut butter-y colour (it looks nicer than it sounds). We narrowed it down to 2 brands of each.

Sidetrack: Why are so many hardwood choices and colours named after foods? Some of our favourites included: fudge, toffee, chocolate, brownie, etc etc. It's enough to make this girl run home and eat 2 slices of leftover cake. Seriously.

Back on track: So the nice lady in the flooring section gave us some in-stock samples to take home and these annoying "sample boards" of the special order stuff. They give 1 tiny 6" sample among 3 other samples and we're supposed to make a $5,000 decision from that. Gah! Super annoying. So we almost immediately vetoed those ones solely for the fact that we couldn't make an informed decision about them (have I mentioned I'm very controlling).

We got home and moved the boards around to different places (in the kitchen, under the couches, against the tile, etc etc) to check it out. I loove the darker one. It's just so pretty! I love the look of it so much and hte only thing holding me back is my fear that it's going to look all dungeon-y with the kitchen cabinets.

I even tried googling, rate my space-ing, kitchen manufacturers searching, etc for examples of darker cabinets with darker hardwood, but the examples are few and far between (should that be telling me something? It's not). That's why I wish people actually read this so I could beg for help. Maybe I'll try a reverse tactic instead and harass some of my favourite home bloggers for opinions. Mwahahaha-excellent.

In the meantime, a decision may be made tonight!!!!! Exciting!