Let’s talk about wood. As we mentioned on Tuesday, we chose solid oak hardwoods for the four upstairs bedrooms and the hallway because many rooms downstairs and the stairs already have a medium-toned oak that works well with daily life and pets—very similar to the hardwoods we had in our first house.
We started by checking Craigslist for large-quantity matches but didn’t find anything suitable. Next we went to Lumber Liquidators. We’ve had good experiences there before—buying hardwood for half our first house in 2007 and cork flooring for the kitchen in 2011—so it’s become a convenient one-stop shop for flooring, underlayment and tools, especially since this is our third major flooring project.
Clara wandered in and made herself comfortable on the displays—she’s at home on wood flooring—and we began browsing options.
She also climbed the tiny display stairs, which the store staff joked is every toddler’s rite of passage.
We took six samples to compare against the existing stair finish. Since we were removing the upstairs carpet soon, we didn’t want to make a final decision until we could view samples in natural light, so we waited until the next morning to judge them at the house.
To be sure the stair wood was in good shape under the runner, we stripped the carpet off the top step. After pulling about a hundred staples by hand, we found the floor beneath was solid and the medium brown tone was perfect—not too yellow, not too dark, not too light. It felt just right.
Why that particular oak tone? Partly personal preference—some people prefer redder or more golden tones—and partly practical. Very dark floors show pet hair and dust; very light floors can reveal wear more easily. We’d also lived with a similar tone in our previous house and liked how it complemented our furniture and daily life, which influenced our choice.
Here’s a less-than-perfect iPhone photo of the samples, but it shows which one matched best.
The sample in the bottom left matched the stairs most closely. It shared both color and grain variety—dark and light streaks—and matched the downstairs flooring width (2 1/4″). Although we liked some wider-board options, keeping the same width and grain created a cohesive look throughout the house.
Pulling the runner off the top step took about 20 minutes, so we expect several hours of work to remove the whole thing. We resisted stripping every step in the store, knowing the upstairs carpet removal and installing new hardwood upstairs had priority before our move. The stairs will get their turn soon.
After evaluating samples in morning light, we returned to Lumber Liquidators to place our order. We knew the square footage needed and had chosen our match: Lono Oak. It’s a solid, not engineered, hardwood at 3/4″ thickness so it can be refinished multiple times and it carries a 25-year warranty. The list price was very reasonable, and after asking for the best price and mentioning we were repeat customers, we received a 10% discount on the entire order.
That negotiation lowered the price per square foot and also applied to additional items like a special underlayment suited for our subfloor. We plan to install the flooring ourselves to save on labor—Lumber Liquidators quoted roughly $4,000 for professional installation—so if we succeed, it will represent significant savings. With only a few weeks before our move, we need to start soon. We also want to repaint the blue/mauve trim and possibly the doors while the carpet is out but before the new floors go down, so there’s a lot to do.
We left excited and ready to begin. The hardwoods are ordered, the trim color decisions are pending, and we’re considering renting or buying a paint sprayer to speed up the trim work. We’ll report back as the installation and painting progress.
More Flooring Projects
If you’d like to read about other flooring projects we’ve completed, see the posts below:
- Refinishing Hardwood Floors 101
- How To Install Hardwood Flooring Yourself
- How To Install Hardwood Floors Without Nails
- How To Install Click-And-Lock Cork Flooring
- How To Paint A Floor
- How To Stain A Concrete Floor
- How To Remove Carpet