Mixing Multiple Floor Coverings in Your Home

Dear Rob:

Is it acceptable to mix flooring types in the same home?

-Brenda in New Hampshire

Dear Brenda:

In short, absolutely!

Below are some guidelines to help you plan your flooring project. Keep in mind that these are guidelines and not set rules because each house and personal taste varies so much.

Mixing Hardwood

As a general rule, it is best to keep the hardwood on one floor of your home the same species and color. However, certain circumstances make it acceptable to change the species and color if the room is completely separated by a door.  It is also best to keep the hardwood in a home running the same direction unless a different room is completely separated by a door.

Keep in mind that if you use multiple woods on multiple levels or multiple woods on the same level you may lose some flow and continuity as well as any bulk purchasing discounts offered from the retailer.

Mixing Tile

Tile is the easiest product to mix in a home. You can have a common area tile that is the same while changing the tile in each bathroom. You can use the same tile in a common area and change sizes, styles or colors within that common area. You can also use one common tile throughout the areas with tile in the home mixing in different accents within those areas to define each room. With floor plans being more open and hard surfaces being used more throughout the home, more opportunities are available to mix tiles. All you need is a transition point or door to change tiles (style, direction or color).

Using different tiles in each area can give each room its own personality. If the tiles are intended to be more restful or a serve as a background than a focal point that is perfectly acceptable as well! A circumstance where you may want to consider using all of the same tile is if you have rooms with patterned wallpaper.

Mixing Carpet

Let’s say you have hardwood or tile in the common areas of your home. A great place to break up and change the flooring is by using carpet in the bedrooms. Because each bedroom has a door, you can choose different styles and colors for each bedroom to suit the décor of that room.

Another reason to mix carpet in a home is if the main carpet color chosen does not coordinate well with all of the other wall colors in the home.

Tile, carpet and hardwood all mix well with each other as well. From room to room each of these products can transition well to each other.

An idea to help you determine if you are mixing the right amount of floor coverings is to go back to kindergarten – and color. Create a drawing or make a copy of your floor plan and use different colors to outline each type of flooring. When coloring rooms with hardwood, draw lines indicating the direction the hardwood will be installed. When drawing tile, draw squares indicating the direction the tile will be installed. Also, use different colors for each different tile used. For carpet, color the rooms solid. This will help you determine the degree that your floors are either being used for a background or if they are going to be more of a focal point.

-Rob

Matching Hardwood Floor Finishes to Existing Woodwork

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 compliments some of our other design choices. What do you think?

-John in Omaha

Dear John:

When considering the use of hardwood flooring, it is important to consider the other finishes in the home that will surround the hardwood. Some of these finishes include: base board, chair rail, crown molding, window coverings, cabinets, furniture and more. Often, people tend to think that all of the other wood finishes in the home need to have exact matching hardwood species and stain finish colors.

Think of when you go into your closet and look at a collection of sweaters or pants that are all the same color, black for example. It is virtually impossible for all blacks to be the exact same shade. This is the same with hardwood. Even if you chose the same species of hardwood for your floors and the exact same species and stain for the molding, cabinets or doors in your home it would be virtually impossible for those woods to match. It is impossible to match because of different elements such as the area that the hardwood is grown, the conditions it is grown in, the species and type of stain as well as other variables.

Again, even if you could get everything to match, from a design standpoint, you don’t want all of the woods in your home to match; you want them to coordinate or blend, but not to match exactly. If you could get everything to match, it would look like you went to the wood store and picked everything in your home off the same shelf. 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 coordinating 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