Thinking about adding on to your existing wood floors? You’re not alone. A “back of the napkin” calculation reveals that 1 out of 5 inquiries that HSW Floors receives is from homeowners who want to on to their current wood floors with the goal of matching.
Since there’s more than just a few kinds of wood floors out there, I’ll share my thoughts on the challenges of both solid wood floors and engineered, prefinished wood floors.
A word of caution. In both cases you have to be willing to accept some variation in appearance. If you know you are the type of person who has a very low tolerance for imperfection or variation, don’t set your expectations out of reach.
If you have solid wood floors, you’re in luck. Solid hand scraped wood floors and smooth sanded finish wood floors are typically easy to match. If you know you have solid flooring such as oak, maple, walnut, or hickory; chances are very good that my crew can install new flooring and match the species, grade, cut, and size. Matching the stain color might be easy but sometimes a refinish or recoating of the old flooring is necessary. This is because the new floors will be in new condition while the older floors are showing their age.
It’s worth noting that hiring a flooring professional such as HSW Floors is different than shopping for flooring in a retail store. I’ve found that most retail stores don’t deal much in solid flooring and may not have access to the kind of craftsman or product knowledge that your add-on project may require.
If you have engineered wood floors, this could be tricky. If the new floors aren’t going to touch the old floors then this makes is much easier. All we have to do is find a very close match and most people won’t notice the difference. Attention should be paid to the color, variation, texture, and sheen of the finish layer if a matching look is the highest priority. If you intend to lace in new flooring with old flooring, you’ll be well served if you temper your expectations even more. I’ve seen cases where we used wood flooring from the same manufacturer, product line, and color and STILL, dye lot variations were detectable. But don’t worry. Visitors to your home aren’t there to inspect the flooring and probably won’t notice. If you can use a border or break the area up with some other flooring such as tile or carpet, you’ll avoid the exact matching dilemma.
What kind of floor do you have? Is it engineered? Solid? Prefinished? Click here to learn more about types of wood flooring.
Whether you have prefinished or site finished wood floors, matching may be possible. Just give HSW Floors a call today and tell us that you’d like to add on to your wood floors. An on-site consultation will cover all the bases.
