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My home is my pride and joy and I love to share all about the different designs and styles we chose when we were building it. There are a lot of decisions that go into designing and building a home but I absolutely love how ours turned out.
I’ve shared a lot of different aspects about our home on my blog which creates the perfect opportunity for everyone to ask questions about the choices we made. One of the questions I get asked most frequently is about our beautiful light wood floors.
There are so many different color variations to explore when choosing flooring but we always new that lighter floors were going to work best in our home. So today I’m going to share all of the details behind our light wood floors and how you can have them too!
The Details Behind Our Light Wood Floors
In our previous home, we had super dark hardwood floors and it became blatantly obvious that this was not the style for us. We found that darker floors tend to show every single teeny little piece of dirt, which can be tricky with a household full of kids!
Not to mention scratches and nicks on the floor stick out like a sore thumb. From a design perspective, dark wood floors can offer a versatile and sophisticated look, but it can also make some rooms feel smaller than they really are.
So, I knew when building this home I wanted to go the totally opposite direction with light wood floors. I absolutely love the way they our light floors turned out!
Benefits of Choosing Light Wood Floors
- Bright and Modern – One of my favorite things about light wood flooring is that it provides a natural yet modern look to the home. This makes decorating the rest of the space super easy and finding furniture that matches is a piece of cake!
- Easy to Clean – Light hardwood floors are also much easier to clean! The lighter color helps to hide scuffs, scrapes and dirt so you won’t be constantly sweeping and vaccuming.
- Makes the Space look Bigger – Lighter floors help to reflect and accent natural light which makes the spaces in your home look bigger. Which means that this design choice is especially helpful for smaller homes!
- Timeless – Another incredible pro for light wood floors is that the look is classic and timeless. I know that choosing these floors will keep the value of our home high and will be a great option for any future home buyers!
Minwax For Wood Floors
Getting the perfect formula for our light hardwood floors was not easy! After many many swatches on the floor, in both sunny and shady corners of our home, we finally found the perfect formula for our white oak floors.
A mix of Minwax Classic Gray & Simply White. Which is funny as these are also the Benjamin Moore paint color names throughout my whole house!
At first, I was worried that the color was going to end up looking too white, but luckily it turned out exactly as I hoped. It’s hard to trust exactly how the color will seep into the solid wood flooring, but I’m so happy with our results.
Although, this decision is definitely not something that you want to rush! We took our time deliberating between different flooring options, stains, water based vs oil based, and I’m so grateful that we did.
After all, this is your home, you wouldn’t want to be living in a space that makes you uncomfortable.
How To Mix And Match Wood Floors
Remember this mix could look different on your floors depending on the material, our floors are white oak. If you have red oak floors or something more complicated like parquet flooring, this mix will give you a different result.
Your best bet would be to look up the types of wood flooring you have (as there is such a wide range) and the grain pattern before getting your flooring finished. Different wood varieties will have various results, so be sure to do your research first!
Keep in mind that natural lighting will also affect the color and you may want to play with the percentages of each shade too. We believe ours is an even 50/50 split, although, sadly nobody wrote down the final formula.
But starting with these two stain colors will get you close!
Where to Use Light Wood Floors
For those wondering, we also used this same formula on our stairs, banister, and faux wood beams in our living room. We were so happy with the lighter colored that we figured we should use it in more areas of our home!
I especially love that the consistency helps create a lovely flow throughout our home. Matching colors in each area of the house created a perfect symmetry that I really love.
It also makes decorating for different season and Holidays easier and so much simpler! Knowing that I can use all of my favorite decorations in each area of my house makes me so happy and definitely takes some of the stress out of each seasonal change.
Christmas is one of my favorite Holidays to decorate for and the flow of our home and the consistency of the flooring makes it so simple!
Curious about a paint color that you’ve seen in my home? Be sure to check out this post to see all the paint colors used throughout my home!
