*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot.
There are three different types of flooring on the main level of our home: honey oak hardwood, builder beige carpet, and dark laminate that’s been laid over ceramic tile (so I guess that’s technically four different types of flooring). From the moment we bought the house, I’ve wanted to replace all of this mismatched flooring with one cohesive, seamless look throughout. I researched pretty much every flooring option – from hardwood to vinyl plank, and tile to laminate – I considered ALL THE THINGS. First stop: The Home Depot to scope out our options. We took home a handful of samples:
1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 // 11 // 12 // 13 // 14 // 15 // 16 // 17 // 18
After getting these samples home, I studied them in different rooms at various times of the day. When we lived in Texas, we rented a house with extremely dark wood floors. The dark wood showed every speck of dust and every single dog hair. Even after vacuuming and mopping the floor, the floors would look dirty again in a matter of minutes – it was a nightmare and I vowed never to have dark floors again! Flooring options #14, 15, 17, and 18 were a touch too dark, so those were quickly taken out of the running.
I knew I didn’t want to go dark, but I also didn’t want to go extremely light, either, so that eliminated options #1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Some were too warm (#4), while others were too cool (#16). And some had a pinkish tone to them once I had them in the space under our natural lighting (#11, 12, 13). I love grey, but fear the grey trend is on the way out, so #10 was also out.
The luxury vinyl plank flooring had the impressive look and feel of real wood, but is available in a limited number of patterns. I was worried the pattern repeats would be obvious in such a large space. After considering tile, laminate, vinyl, and more, we finally landed on hardwoods. We weren’t sure if we wanted to go with solid or engineered hardwoods, so I did quite a bit of research outlining the pros and cons of each.
Solid Hardwood vs. Engineered Hardwood Flooring
There’s nothing quite like the real thing, so solid hardwoods are perfect if you’re a purist who wants to invest in the real deal. You can sand, stain, and refinish solid wood floors numerous times and the durability and longevity is unmatched. However, DIY installation can be a bit more challenging and if installed incorrectly, the wood can warp and buckle under humidity and moisture.
Engineered hardwood is constructed of layers of hardwood and high-quality plywood, each layer positioned in opposite directions. This prevents the floors from warping and bowing in moist or humid environments. There’s a kitchen and laundry room on our main floor, so I decided that the engineered hardwood would be better suited for these rooms. All wood will expand and contract due to temperature and humidity changes, but the engineered hardwood will be more stable than solid wood.
We finally decided on the Malibu Wide Plank French Oak Engineered Hardwood because it’s the perfect tone, grain, and width for us. The French oak has been smoked, which gives it a deeper tone and color, and the hand-scraped texture is absolutely gorgeous. It has a matte finish on it and comes in wider planks, which I love. We chose the click-lock option, so installation was a breeze as well! Want to see how it turned out? Check out this post!
- Malibu Wide Plank Maple Manhattan
- Malibu Wide Plank Hickory Crescent
- Bruce American Vintage Scraped By the Sea Oak
- Pergo XP Haley Oak Laminate Flooring
- Malibu Wide Plank French Oak Rincon
- Malibu Wide Plank French Oak Point Reyes
- Pergo Outlast+ Vienna Oak Laminate Flooring
- Home Decorators Collection Colburn Maple
- Malibu Wide Plank French Oak Delano
- Lifeproof Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring Woodacres Oak
- Home Decorators Collection Wire Brushed Strand Woven Sand
- Lifeproof Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring Fresh Oak
- Lifeproof Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring Essential Oak
- Malibu Wide Plank French Oak Mavericks
- Malibu Wide Plank French Oak Montara
- Home Legend Birch Hemingway
- TrafficMaster Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring Pacific Pine
- Malibu Wide Plank Maple Cardiff
*This post contains affiliate links. To read my full disclosure policy, please click here.
Significant piece of work, Thank You!!
Nice recommendations and external sources to add to! Thank you for this post! Love the layout of your website too. 🙂
Love this floor! Which color is it?
Hey Jen,
Thank you for sharing. French oak is a great choice, it looks very attractive.
Can you tell me about caring for such floors?
Thank you
Stephen
Thanks Stephan,
These floors have been very low maintenance! We just vacuum and mop them and have no complaints so far!
I’ve read through this multiple times now trying to find the specific color you went with, you did not say! It looks like 9? Is that correct?
I linked it in the last paragraph in this post. We went with the French Oak Delano.
Hi, I found your site when I googled reviews for the Malibu Wide Plank French Oak Delano. I’m considering the same for my floors. Can you update on how they are holding up? Have they been installed about a year? Also, I’m wanting to be sure I get something that is timeless and not trendy, something that is just a neutral brown, on the lighter side. I was also looking at the Maple Cardiff, but based on your comments here, decided that would be too dark. Would you say the Delano color fits that description, or does it have red or gold or yellow undertones? Thanks so much for your help. Buying flooring for my whole house and just want to be absolutely sure I’m getting the right one!
Hi Kristine,
Thanks for the questions! You can get a closer look at the flooring here in this video: https://youtu.be/UMEO2T7dv_8
The flooring has held up beautifully! And yes, now that you’ve mentioned it, we’ve had them installed over a year now and they look as they did when we first laid them. Extremely durable (we have a 100 lb. Rhodesian Ridgeback and the kids ride their skateboards and hoverboards on the floors), spills are super easy to clean up… we’ve had nothing but a great experience so far! I still love the wood tone of the Delano color – not too light and not too dark. No red undertones whatsoever, maybe some gold undertones, but the floors definitely don’t look yellow or orange (like our previous honey oak floors). I’d recommend buying just 1 package so you can lay them out and see the wood tones in person. This way, you can get a better idea as to how the floors will look in your home at different times of day/lighting situations, etc. You can always return the pack if they don’t work for you, and you won’t have spent the time, money, and effort actually installing them until you’re 100% sure! Best of luck!
We also just received our Delano and it the perfect shade to mix in with our built in cabinets and furniture. No dated gold tones and subtle graining blends nicely with our other wood pieces. And I am picky about sheen on finishes. This is perfect for our country home.
Hi! Your floors look beautiful and I’m in the process of replacing my own. We have a similar situation with honey oak hardwood floors, oak colored laminate, and tile laminate all in the same space. In your research how did you find the prices of Engineered click-on Hardwood to compare to hardwood that wasn’t engineered with the plywood blend?
Thank you!
I’m think you might have the samples mislabeled. French Oak Mavericks looks nothing like 14. The #1 reason I am so confident is that I just ordered Mavericks–so I’m pretty familiar with what it looks like.
I was really interested in the segment of your article that mentioned how solid hardwood floors can be repolished and refinished several times to allow for a much longer-lasting floor. This could really help us out since we’re trying to stay in one house for the rest of our lives after a grueling homebuying process. I’ll look around for flooring contractors in the area that can offer us a great solid hardwood floor and have them stop by whenever we need refinishing.
why did you go for the 3/8 inch thick rather than the 1/2 inch thick? is the half inch thick much better?
also, did you consider the lifeproof engineered hardwood from home depot as well?
thanks
I have the same question as well. Am leaning towards the 1/2 inch as it also has a thicker wear layer (2mm vs 1.2mm), but the 1/2 inch looks like it only comes in tongue and groove, not the click-lock option.