Dining Room Remodel- the beginning of the end

7' wide Red Oak Planks

We are locked and loaded and ready to get this dining room finished!  Our 1100 lbs. of red oak wood flooring arrived this week.  The Laird ripped out the carpet, and we cleared out all the stuff that had been stored in there for the past 2 years.  Here are the details.


We wanted long length, wide plank hardwood flooring in the dining room.   Two years ago, we purchased our kitchen flooring from Lumber Liquidators.  Naturally I started my flooring search with Lumber Liquidators and brought home a few samples that seemed close to the color of the stairs that land in the dining room.  Unfortunately, Lumber Liquidators widest plank is 5" (which really doesn't feel that wide- we have some in the kitchen).  The second problem is that none of their pre-finished oak quite matched the color of the stairs.   So began my Internet search for our other options.

 Flooring.org had a great selection of what we were looking for.  They had planks up to 12" wide!  Not to mention long length boards up to 10'.  Because I finished out stairs 2 years ago when we purchased the house, I do know the exact color stain that was used for the stairs.  Though it is a ton more work, we opted to go with the 7" wide red oak planks in various lengths ranging from 2' to 10'.  Though shipping cost more than buying locally AND unfinished wood is going to be a lot of work- we are going to get the exact floor that we want.  Not to mention the prices at flooring.org are great.  The price we paid for 7"wide, long length tongue and groove boards is less than the 5" unfinished from Lumber Liquidators.

The dining room getting prepped for flooring installation

The PLAN:
Floors:  We will be installing 7" wide Red Oak planks.  They will be stained with Miniwax Provincial and seal with polyurethane.

Walls:  Pine paneling will either be taken down or painted white.  The Laird will be building a storage window seat with two 30" wide, floor to ceiling bookcases on the right and left of the window in above photo.  The right side of room will be finished with board and batten wainscot to the Laird's eye level, with a shelf on top.
* The wall by the stairs may also be a built in bookcase.

We'll be working on this room as often as we have time over the next few months.  Though we have a lot of work ahead of us, this is the beginning of the end of large scale renovations/ remodeling.  We are so close, I can almost taste it!  After two years, it will be so nice to be finished with all the major work that needed to be done to the house.