Gray matters

We went yesterday to pick up our new cabinet from Kincaid's and fell in love all over again. Here it is with my new white jars from Nell Hills. (and a little asian-esque wood stool that never sold at the mall) Yes, that's the big picture window smack in the middle of our house. The verticle line is blue painters tape and some masking tape, and is a representation of where we're building wall, and where we're removing. It makes more sense when you see it from the other side, where this piece will eventually live.

Something else we found yesterday is this:

You'll remember that I found what I thought was the ideal gray flooring for Chez Malaise. Ideal except for the price tag, which would land in the neighborhood of 20K before installation.

This above is a gray stained prefinished oak just like the first product, but is made by Armstrong rather than Mirage. I like the look a lot. The cost is nearly 2/3's less if we buy a pallet, (and we'll need at least one), and not a whole lot more than the cost of refinishing the existing floors. This would allow us to easily remedy the floors in parts without having to deal with drying times and stop/start finish issues.

So the only question is the quality of the product. The one manufacturer review I've been able to find was neutral, and an installers review named it an average product. I'm pretty much ok with average because it's the look I want, and I don't think we're especially hard on our floors. If you've had any experience with Armstrong's hardwood products I'd be very interested in hearing them.

12 comments:

Mrs. Blandings said...

Looks terrif. Can't add anything on the floor product, but I like the color. Staying tuned.

Karena said...

David I haven't had experience with this product as the last time I had hardwood floors laid it was about (never mind I don't want to tell you how long ago it was) I do want to put them in my condo though hopefully sooner than later. They look great in this image.

Martha said...

Love the color of the floors -- we have wood which we had refinished so can't say anything about the product. But sometimes $$$ have a way of making your decision for you. (It happens all the time at Linderhof!)

ArchitectDesign™ said...

It's probably ok -but armstrong is medium builder grade at best (sorry armstrong!) but will be an ok product that will wear well. It will probably be fine! Let us know how it works out.

David said...

I hate to go with 'medium' anything, but at $4/ft vs. $12/ft (Mirage's price) it's quite a difference. I've checked out the warranty and it's 25 years on the finish which I think is good. If theres any justice in 25 years I'll be a leathery old man sitting by the pool in Palm Springs.

I suppose the other thing to consider is that its solid plank, so if at some point it needed to be sanded down and refinished that's absolutely doable.

Raina Cox said...

Sorry I can't give you any feedback on that product's quality. It looks lovely in the picture though.

If there's any justice, I'll being sitting next you at least once a year sexually harassing your pool boy.

David said...

Ooh Raina I can't wait!

Toad said...

David: have you checked lumber liquidators? Look at the hand scrapped flooring.

We did it about a year ago, and love it.

David said...

I've looked at hand scraped product online, but not on their site, I'll take a look.

Decorina said...

Those grey floors are gorgeous. But I'm a little confused as to why you want new wood floors instead of refinishing the existing floors?

David said...

Hey Decorina! New floors for a few different reasons.

First, the existing floors have some serious issues, fixable sure, but pretty invasive.

Then there are a number of areas, the entry, the entire family room, perhaps closets, where there is no hardwood, and some would have to be added. The family room for instance is all parquet, which is coming apart all over the place. The kitchen as well, totally different floor.

Finally, we're going to have to renovate in stages. Doing everything in zones and leaving the floors to be all refinished at once would be awful (the floors bug us a lot because they're so bad looking). That would mean we'd have to refinish in stages, and you never know how it's going to go when they stop and start finishing at different times. Plus the whole hassle of moving all our stuff out of the house and being gone for so many days for drying time.

Decorina said...

Makes sense now... I love the grey color! And I had a client whose parquet was also falling apart - it can be a nightmare when it starts to go.