One of the most exciting things about renovating the house has been the time Emily and I have spent choosing the final “finishing” products. Picking the granite, wall, and tile colors; coordinating things, etc. Of them all, I think the most thrilling is the EcoTimber Orchard Walnut wood floors we chose. We did a lot of research and ended up concluding that FSC certified hardwoods are the only way to go if you want to make sure the wood you’re purchasing is legitimate. This floor is a pretty special floor with a really cool story and can only be purchased at certain times as the source is sensitive:
The wood used in this flooring is sourced from commercial Walnut orchards located in the Central Valley of California. Here, approximately 200,000 acres of perpetual Walnut orchards, maintained by hundreds of small growers, produce 98% of the U.S. nut production. When the Walnut orchards age, (approximately forty years), they lose nutting productivity. They are then cut down and replanted to start the orchard cycle again, with the first nuts produced in only four years.
The floors aren’t installed yet and this process won’t begin for another two weeks, as the floors need time to acclimate to my houses humidity and temperature. But I have a manufacturers picture that is absolutely beautiful. Enjoy, and look for some installation pictures soon!
Marvelous! Looking forward to checking out the installation pictures as well as the final product. Did you get them from HD or Lowes? When you lay them upstairs in the bedrooms will they be in the N-S or E-W direction? I could see the hallway upstairs going in a N-S orientation (long way orientation). Will you have contra pieces at the doors? (If the pieces in the room lay N-S at the door you have a E-W piece. It would allow you treat bedroom #1, hallway, and bedroom #2 as separate projects). For some of the tricky pieces you may have to manually drill and nail.
Wow, those are neat! What kind of a finish will they have on them? The place we are in now has bamboo and I’m really not crazy about it. It is supposed to be hard, but it’s really not very hard at all. You could probably put a scratch in it with your fingernail. Not good if you have an indoor pet. They also smudge pretty easily….as in, someone that I live with who has moderately moist feet has a tendency to leave bigfoot prints on the floor when he walks around barefoot. Moral of the story– good thing you didn’t go with bamboo!
Emily and I seriously considered bamboo until we learned that most bamboo is made with formaldehyde and is seriously soft. We ended up finding out about EcoTimber because of that; EcoTimber actually makes a 100% formaldehyde-free “woven” bamboo that is actually quite high on the Janka (hardness) scale. But once we saw the woven floor in person, we realized how similar each piece looked and how visually uninteresting bamboo is. We very quickly moved on to hardwood and I can’t be happier about our choice!
The floors themselves have a manufacturers clear-coat polyurethane. No stain or anything. The pieces themselves have a huge amount of color difference so no need to stain.
The pumpkin colour on the wall in the picture are similar to what you have in the kitchen.
Jason, where did you learn how to do all of this home improvement-y stuff? I would be seriously intimidated….
My godfather helped me learn some of the stuff, like framing techniques or other things like how to use a nailgun, etc. Then some friends helped with other things: Adam knew a bit about plumbing — at least enough to help me rip the old stuff out, Ed had some helpful tips about subfloors, drywall, and other things. Most of the other stuff I just figured out by guessing or researching online. It’s just been a matter of putting the pieces of information together and making a decision and DOING the job. It isn’t always perfect but honestly, nothing ever is. You might think a general contractor always does it the right way but I can usually walk into a renovated home and easily see where someone took an easy out. And FYI, I’m always intimidated and overwhelmed!
Jc, any news/pics of the new flooring? Thks