As a new member of houseblogs.net, let me say what an inspiration and wealth of information so many of you have been. I’ve been lurking here since the beginning…time to stop being a wallflower. Off the top, hello to Ranch Redo and Bungalow ’23 – two excellent member sites I visit frequently, and thanks again to John down at The Devil Queen for both his digital camera tips and the best head(lines) ever!
A special note of gratitude goes out to Kim at One Woman’s Home Journal, who was the first houseblogs member to comment here, and even added my site to her blogroll of favourites. I’m floored, and honoured. With a U.

And yet, I’m not floored.
The tension mounts here, and since it doesn’t look like this floor will be getting laid anytime soon, I might as well tell you about it. You can see by the photo below that it will, eventually, be a vast improvement over what I’m currently treading on.

The brand of wood flooring we selected for our kitchen addition and bed sitting room is called Satin Finish, chosen after much deliberation. Over the course of a few weeks, we’d taken home at least 20 flooring samples in a range of prices from different manufacturers.
In the end, the Satin Finish came out on top with several things weighing in its favour, most notable being that this flooring is made in Canada by a company with a long and reputable history, and was available through a locally-owned and operated small business.

While this may not seem like a big deal, we think it’s important to support your country’s economy and your local economy whenever possible. The few bucks we might have saved by purchasing a better-known brand through a big box store (and actually, that turned out not to be true once delivery charges were figured in) was more than made up for by the service we received.
Get this: not only did the business owner and our salesman deliver the goods (and schlep them into my home) personally, they did so without having received payment yet. I was impressed that they would drop off a few grand worth of flooring and not even ask for a cheque!

The flooring is ¾” thick premium white oak, and we chose 3” wide planks in a semi-gloss finish called ‘Sandal’. We debated about which way to go here – unfinished or pre-finished – but with a young child, too many belongings and the experience of sanding our home’s entire second floor, dining room, sitting room and parlour behind us, convenience won out.

If you’re buying pre-finished, I’d strongly suggest that you take home colour samples of the actual flooring before making a final decision. I was sure I knew exactly what I wanted, but the shades I gravitated towards didn’t end up looking the best when placed in the room and referenced with the other finishes that would be in proximity. Between the furniture, existing cabinetry (which will remain for the time being) and the trim work, we have quite a bit of wood going on. Most of my initial selections had a distinct orange, yellow or reddish cast that wasn’t so apparent when viewed on their own, but looked like crap when they landed in the kitchen.

We had this same dilemma choosing the linoleum colour for the kitchen’s traffic area – what we thought would look good ended up lending an overall effect of the area being way too orange. We settled on a quartz grey colour (whoa – two uniquely Canadian spellings back-to-back in a single sentence!) that echoes the tile in our mudroom and makes a good transition from one shade of wood floor (the new) to another (original wood floor in our dining room – it’s a honey shade and the wood’s so thin we can’t re-stain it).

You won’t have to guess where we purchased that linoleum from. We’re now a repeat customer.

And here’s some good news – Deirdre’s off on a ‘play date’, and we’re about to spring into action and do some demolition. I really do need to blow off some steam…