09
May

Log Rhythms: Floors, Part 2

Last Wednesday I discussed how we wound up with Wild Horse Sandstone for our counters and tiled areas of the cabin. We even considered putting the floor plank tiles everywhere in the cabin. Indeed, that would have made for easy clean-up everywhere.

When I think of log cabins, I do think of wood flooring. With its rising popularity these days, it seemed important to put in some wood flooring for a few parts of the cabin, particularly since we hope to rent the cabin in the future–potential renters would expect to see wood floors in a log cabin.

Thus, I began researching the possibilities for such flooring. If you are a fan of this blog’s Friday posts, then you know, all too well, that we have a golden lab by the name of Maizie. Maizie is a sweetheart, very smart, and we adore her presence most of the time–she’s often both our entertainment and our dearest companion now that we have an empty nest.

Unfortunately, like most dogs, she comes with claws. She seems to have the fastest growing claws of any dog I’ve ever known. And while we try to keep them trimmed, I was concerned about her ability to scratch wood floors at the cabin–every place I investigated for wood flooring pointed out that dogs are very hard on wood floors.

Enter the Janka hardness scale.

I learned that various species of wood are evaluated on how hard it is and given a rating via the Janka scale. The harder the wood the more resistant it is to scratching.

At first, I heard that bamboo flooring was great for such a purpose and wore well. Plus, the uniqueness of many kinds of bamboo flooring made me look at it more than once. But then I began reading about how even the most experienced flooring installers had the worst luck laying it properly and how it would bow and create other problems shortly after installation.

The least expensive wood flooring is domestic wood, so I began looking at the more traditional flooring. Even the hardest woods domestically still seem to scratch easily. While we could, I suppose, banish Maizie from the cabin, that seemed ridiculous long term. And Maizie is used to being an inside dog, is aging and not good at handling either cold or hot weather well. In fact, she’s very skittish in rain and ice storms.

We could also let another family adopt her. But Maizie is now a fixture in not only our lives, but the lives of our growing family. And she’s “alarm protection” when strangers come around. So, getting rid of her is not responsible as a pet owner, nor will that allow me to sleep at night.

I began noticing the “exotic woods.” They are much higher on the Janka scale and resist pet scratches well. They’re also incredibly beautiful. Only one problem–they’re pricey!

On top of that they are such hard floors that some installers with lower end equipment break saw blades just trying to cut them. The hubby and I were resigned to sequestering Maizie from the wood floors as much as possible, cover large areas with area rugs, and use a domestic wood.

Then we discovered Bellawood flooring with their 100-year warranty. In our minds even if the floors lasted half that, they should last much longer than we hoped.

We found a retailer having a sale on Bellawood flooring that made it more affordable. I’d love to tell you it was just as cheap as  domestic floors, but I’d be lying. It was still over $ 2/sq. ft. more.

I fell in love with Red Cumaru, also known as Brazilian teak, at this sale and we took a deep breath and placed the order. The variation in colors is just incredibly beautiful and allows us to use a variety of decor colors due to the variance in the shades of each plank.

Maizie has been all over this floor repeatedly as well as our daughter and son-in-law’s lab mix dog (He makes Maizie look like a cocker spaniel, size-wise.) and the floors have not shown a scratch in a year’s time. However, if you drop something on it with a sharp edge or wear a shoe with a pebble stuck in the bottom of it, it will scratch the floor.

Our solution? Remove your shoes at the door! And wear sox or indoor slippers everywhere when inside to keep your feet warm in the wintertime. And we now try to be careful about carrying items with sharp ends over these areas of the house.

I was not fond of putting down wood flooring for another reason–I grew up with wood floors and I knew caring for them properly was a lot more difficult than for wall to wall carpeting and tile floors. Yes, I hate the multi-step process of keeping them clean and verbally kick myself every time I clean them.

I quickly forget that self-verbal abuse, though, every time a newcomer walks into the cabin and falls in love with our flooring choices, marveling at the sandstone’s likeness to wood and the beautiful color of the red Cumaru. I guess it’s worth it in the long run.

But I reserve the right to get a robotic vacuum when they are on sale.

Friday’s Post: Maizie is Musing…

You Might Also Like: Log Rhythms, Floors, Part I; Log Rhythms: Sanding and Staining; and Log Rhythms: Spring Fling

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 9th, 2018 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Log Rhythms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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