Hardwood Floors A Natural Beauty

Many years ago a wise man told me wood, hardwood, is a living, breathing thing.  Even long after the tree becomes a plank, solid or engineered, hardwood floors are ever-changing throughout their lifetime.  As a retailer of the most beautiful collections of hardwoods, I find those are words to live by.

Queue:  Acclimation

Photo courtesy of Armstrong Flooring

As we mentioned wood lives and breathes and to properly introduce hardwood flooring to your own home, you must acclimate.  Acclimation allows the moisture content of the wood to adjust to the conditions in the room by simply placing the opened boxes of planks in each area this process begins and will take a few days to a couple of weeks.

Ever-Changing Throughout Their Lifetime

Living....Breathing....Ever-Changing.... Hardwood Floors do require a little TLC.  Installing window coverings to block UV Rays and on occasion rearranging furnishings and area rugs will help your floors age evenly.  Age?  Yes, a natural process for hardwoods is aging, yellowing, fading, darkening and even lightening in certain conditions all accelerated by UV rays.

Highlighting Wood's Natural Beauty

You've done your research on the quality of all the different hardwood species, and are ready to make your selection and now you're wondering which finish and character will actually highlight the wood's natural beauty.  We're often asked:  "How will this look with my cabinets.... my furniture... my decor palette". This is a one-word answer, and that word is CONTRAST.

Photo credit: top inspiration board from our friends at RMCoco Fabrics.  Photo credit bottom hardwood selections by Artistry Hardwoods with color-through technology.

In this featured 'Inspiration Room' (above) the choices for a wood floor to accentuate the overall palette of the room, can be either the darker of the dark tones in the room which brings a subtle balance, or the lighter for a more defined contrast showcasing both the floor and furnishings.  

One of the more difficult rooms to find just the right contrast is any room with cabinetry.  

Let's talk kitchens....

Photo credit Hallmark Floors Alta Vista collection in Laguna

If you've ever browsed through Houzz, you know that white kitchen cabinets are the most popular and that they haven't lost their appeal over the years.  The choices in floor finishes are limitless and trend towards personal preference.  The key here is the painted cabinetry island and balancing all the tones while at the same contrasting to highlight all three - the white, the black and, mainly, the floor.  

The darker the cabinets the lighter the wood floors and vice-a-versa.

Natural Hickory hardwood floors have so much character in their color variation they are a natural pick for the darker wood cabinet kitchens.

Found on Pinterest from the Wood Grain Cottage

Cherry Woods, beautifully done!  The deeper coloration in the Cherry planks pick up the color in the cabinets and the contrast with white base and moldings is a stand-out.

And, with every design a little paint must have - Greige, the not so gray, not so beige color that's the new neutral for home decor.

When you have a true love for Greige, you don't just paint the Island, no...no...no... you paint the entire kitchen in your favorite color.  Now, what to do for the hardwood floor selections.  Of course, or should we say:  "HOPEFULLY", you selected your floors at the time you selected this paint color for your cabinets.  The cabinets are simply stunning and the floors must do their part not to compete, but to enhance and we've done our best with these samples from Homerwood in White Oak.  Why White Oak?  We are loving the natural, rich grains of the wood and have presented three choices of finishes, from the top we have Graphite, then Simply White, and lastly, but a lovely choice is Espresso.  We're leaving the decision to you.  Which floor do you choose to compliment the cabinets?

Inspired With Color

One of the things we love most about Hardwood Flooring is the natural beauty.  A beauty that can stand alone, but we see that's not so practical for our homes - just the floor.  We want to add layers of color and texture to emphasize that warmth and feeling of home.  When it comes to complimenting the color for hardware floors, we look to nature - the tree, and the leaf doesn't fall from the tree, and neither does the color.

Our first go-to is green - many, many shades of green

As the leaves change with the season, so does our color

Inspiration: Benjamin Moore's 2017 color of the year Shadow

Aesthetics

Homerwood's Hickory Natural

In our Showroom, the Hickory Natural gets so much attention!  The sample is pulled more times than we can count and wherever we go people want to know, "how do I decorate with this busy, but beautiful hardwood?".  We've put together a vision board for just this purpose.  Envisioning the build from the floor up and introducing the layers as we move throughout the space with paint, natural textures, and textiles with complimentary tones that showcase the hickory wood floor.  

Earlier in describing the beauty of complimenting hardwoods with color, did we say: "Just the floor?"  Ahhhh, we did, but our reference has meaning; meaning that some woods are so pretty you don't want to put anything on them!  Enter the patterns, a truly stand alone floor.

Chevron

For the Love of Patterns

 Notably suited for entryways and hallways, and whole house takeovers!

The mix of board sizes creates interest in this stunner

Our grand finale!  Herringbone in mixed stains for a truly remarkable floor or wall application.

With over eight vendor choices in our Showroom, we are familiar with each unique quality they represent.  From the species of the wood, the hardness factors & how they perform to the way they are manufactured, our philosophy remains that providing a quality installation will ensure the natural beauty of your own hardwood floors.
We did go a bit long in this Blog, and there's a lot more to cover!  Do you have any questions/comments?  Please post them in our comments section, or better yet, stop by and say Hi!  We're happy to be of service.

Meet The Experts Open House April 30th

This year's Meet the Experts Open House marks our
25-year anniversary!

As you can imagine, we're very excited for this year's event and thank you for checking in here.  
Our "Experts" are coming together in our showroom with the newest product lines that you love the most. . .  Vinyl Planking. . . Window Coverings. . . Carpeting. . . Tile. . . Hardwood Floors
What makes our event a stand-out?  Our MEET THE EXPERTS event is a personalized home show where you meet one-on-one with Factory Reps, Installers and Industry Pros to learn more about the product's quality and application for your home.

April 16th - This just in!  You'll want to scroll down to see all the offerings for our Raffle Drawing.

MEET OUR "EXPERT"
TOM GARNER, TUFTEX CARPETS OF CALIFORNIA
Enter the event raffle to win
a beautiful area rug
(it's the rug on the far right)

Tom Garner began his career in flooring in 1977 as a carpet installer in Lansing, Michigan.  In 1983 he relocated to Southern California where he installed carpet at first, but then quickly moved into retail carpet sales.  After eleven years of retail sales and management, Tom switched to working for a carpet mill and began his 22-year career with Tuftex. 
We're so happy that Tom will be our "Expert" for all your carpeting needs!
Click here to see more on Tuftex Carpets

Meet our "Expert" Toni Huggins of Hunter Douglas
See the magic of PowerView Motorization
One raffle prize winner will walk away with the magic
of the PowerView Hub!

Toni Huggins has been a player on the Hunter Douglas Sales team for a little over ten years and her energy is contagious!  She absolutely enjoys working alongside her dealer partners (namely Knight's) and loves her 'dream territory'.  Her expertise in Hunter Douglas Window Fashions is a definite Must Have for our event.  Toni is very excited to meet with you, share design ideas, and talk about "putting a motor on it" with the new PowerView app.
Click here to see more on Hunter Douglas Window Fashions

when it comes to tile...
see what emser tile has in store
for your floor and more
 

We had so much at last year's event, we're coming back to do it again!  Of course, we're bringing along pizza stones for the raffle and great savings on the above featured products.  Very excited to be a part of Knight's 25-year anniversary celebration!
Click here to see more on Emser Tile

Meet our expert
ryan burns of CORETEC VINYL
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CORE

We've fallen in love with vinyl all over again, and you will too.  Our Expert Ryan Burns will walk us through the amazing properties of vinyl planking. The Core in COREtec is what makes this a truly unique floor with cork constructed in the underlayment.  Did we say "cork"?  Yes, we did and Ryan will be bringing along some local corkage for our raffle drawing.
Click here for more on COREtec Vinyl Planking
 

MEET OUR EXPERT SCOTT ASHMAN
design your home to fit your lifestyle
with hardwood or Laminate flooring

Are you wondering which wood will work for your home or office?  Scott Ashman's expertise in wood and laminate flooring is just the Expert advice we need to answer this question and more.  
Hardwood or Laminate?  Custom Finishes?  Pattern layout?  Hardiness?  We came up with a few questions for Scott, now the question is:  What’s yours???  
We have three outstanding product lines being featured for our event:  Mission Collection Hardwoods,  
All American Laminates and Homerwood Hardwoods.  

  

Did someone say prizes?

What would a party be without goody bags?  Along with our Experts we've all been very busy bringing together some fabulous prizes for our raffle drawing and filling up the goody bags for all attendees.  
This year's event is coming together with a ba-bang for our 25-year anniversary.  Can't wait to see everyone.  

“Had fun! Some great ideas in decorating.
You guys went above and beyond!
Knight’s has been our go-to for years and we love this show every year.”

coming soon: exclusive saving offers & sneak peeks from our "experts"  Don't miss an update scroll to bottom of page & subscribe to our blog