Dear Rob:
My wife and I are trying to pick out a stain color for our new hardwood floor, and we just can’t seem to agree. I’d like to pick a color that matches our cabinets, but my wife would like to pick a color that complements some of our other design choices. What do you think?
-John in Omaha
Dear John:
When choosing hardwood flooring, consider the other finishes around it. These may include baseboards, chair rails, crown molding, window coverings, cabinets, furniture, and more.
Many people assume that all of the wood finishes in a home should match exactly. That is not necessary. Think about a closet full of black sweaters or pants. Even though they are all black, the shades are not exactly the same. Hardwood works the same way.
Even if you choose the same wood species for the floor, molding, cabinets, and doors, the colors may still vary. Several factors can cause these differences. They include where the wood grew, the conditions in which it grew, the stain used, and other natural variations.
From a design standpoint, exact matching is not the goal anyway. You want the wood finishes to coordinate and blend. If everything matched perfectly, the room could look flat and overly uniform.
That’s no fun! A home looks more balanced and well planned if each different type of wood blends rather than matches. When everything matches, it takes away from the natural beauty of the product as well as its natural characteristics.
Taking it one step further than floors, molding, cabinets, and doors, the same “rules” apply to furniture and accessories. It is perfectly acceptable to have a stained cherry piece of furniture in the same room with stained oak floors and doors. It is also perfectly acceptable to have more than one stained species or color of furniture in the same room as a different stained floor or molding.
This advice does not mean that you should mix oak trim with cherry doors with maple cabinets just so that everything does not match – it means that it is ok and expected for all wood finishes in a home not to match exactly.
Be creative, but most importantly, have your expectations set to where you understand that even the same species of hardwood stained the same color will not match exactly.
-Rob
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