We are rehabbing our house and need to replace all the flooring on the first floor (it’s a two story suburban colonial, about 3k sq feet, traditional style).
Right now we have a patchwork of hardwood in some rooms, carpet in several, and builder linoleum in kitchen. It’s an open floor plan and want the same flooring throughout - doing luxury vinyl plank (so it can go into the kitchen, laundry room, etc.).
Thinking of (maybe?!) selling in the next 3-5 years. So want something that will appeal to future buyers (as well as something we’d like).
Trying to figure out - are lighter floors now the trend? For a while it was dark walnut (which I loved and did in another house rehab). Walls are grey; kitchen will be all white.
I’m trying to not get caught at the tail end of a style arc and put a ton of money into something (e.g., dark floors) that will look dated in 5 years (when everyone wants light!). Nervous because the floor is such a big investment. Appreciate any thoughts!
We just picked flooring for our basement project. Seems like what’s “in” are the color extremes - either dark or very light. The in-between tones don’t seem as popular.
We ended up picking light floors because we are going with a darker paint color. We also have dark hardwoods in the rest of the house and I didn’t want to try to match the LVP with the real stuff.
Honestly though, I’d go with what works with the style of your house.
Whatever you pick, it will go out of favor in 10 years. When I bought my retirement house, dark wood was in, but I chose blonde, now dark wood floor is no longer as popular, now it’s grey. Here is a link to wood color preferences. 6 Wood Floor Color Trends You'll See Everywhere in 2022.
Light wide plank white oak is definitely on trend, but will it look outdated in 5 years? Hard to say. I have very dark hardwood throughout my house we put in 15 years ago. My friends rave over them. I think if you keep the rest of your decor updated, you really can’t go too wrong with any color hardwoods. The only exception is maybe that honey color that was in style 25 years ago.
I would definitely stay away from grey floors, no matter what. That is so incredibly played out and I believe will look like Palladian windows did by the lates 90s onward or any other very popular style that immediately dates a style/remodel.
For ultimate variability you could decide on hardwood instead, have it stained what you prefer and be able to market it as something changeable by just sanding down and re-staining.
Ultimately, you’re putting vinyl down. If anyone buying the house wants actual wood floors, it is all getting ripped up. Pick the floors you want (I would go dark with an all white kitchen personally). If you choose ‘poorly’ in terms of resale down the road in 3-5 years, you can give a credit to entice buyers to overlook the floors. But you’ll have enjoyed them while you were living there.
So 20 years ago we built our home and went with natural color Australian Cyprus and wood stains natural on doors (some have an orange tinge) and some light wood color. The cabinets are a medium wood natural pine as well. I remember my builder/ painter asking about matching everything in tint and I said I have very different wood colored antique furniture so matching is not my goal. I figure if white is in we are not, if black is in we are not but we are really never out totally because the wood was a natural color for the wood.
We have a friend who does a lot of renovations…her rule of thumb, “pick what pleases you” her theory is that even first time homebuyers these days will renovate to their taste, with little exceptions to that theory.
She was the one who pushed me into designing my vintage yellow and green color scheme in my kitchen. “Just do what makes you happy” and you know what? It does. Every single day, every morning, every time I walk by it, it makes me smile.
Agree with everything above. I worked for a home remodeling company. A client asked one of the designers if their selections would look dated in the future. He chuckled and said “yes, that’s what keep’s giving us business”
Start with what you like (browse the ‘magazines’)
No grey’s (far overused) – unless that’s what you like.
Keeping neutral, rather than ‘trendy’ is usally safer.
Darks show dirt/dust more than light.
Consider other woods in your home so they at least blend or coordinate (not necessarily match).
Consider the age of the home, and potentially work with styles popular to that age. (I personally dislike farm kitchen styling in 1950’s modern homes, for example)
We have legacy whitewashed thin plan oak floors throughout the ground floor. They are beat up and old… I think original to the house built circa 1982, but they photograph amazingly well. So every time I have a burning desire to replace them, I take a picture, look at it, and I change my mind.
I agree! Any time we are doing something other than paint, we go with a timeless look, because 1) we like it, 2) we can’t afford to lose money on resale, and 3) we can’t afford to renovate much. We save our uniqueness for paint and accessories.
You really can’t go wrong with hardwoods, neutrals, and many different ceramic/stone tiles. Style trends come and go. I’m sure our very plain medium cherry kitchen cabinets (here when we moved in) aren’t on-trend, but they are nice and I don’t care. They’ll come back in eventually. And in my opinion, most natural materials don’t go out of style, unless they were part of a super-trend that people are sick of.
In our prior (rather rustic) house, the carpet was worn down to the sub-floor so we had to replace it. We spent a bit of extra money on real wood, and went with honey colored oak because it will never go out of style. It was not that much more than synthetic and we absolutely loved it. We installed tile in either terracotta color or white, depending on location. It will still be in style a long time from now if the owners chose to keep it.
Our current house has similar wood floor and medium neutral tile. I’m thrilled I’ll never feel the need to change it, since we don’t have the $ anyway. The paint, however… there are like 20 colors of paint in this house and but we’ve never gotten around to changing it.
I hate the grey, greige and white washed floors. I only like dark floors in old Victorians where they go with the style. Personally I like something in the honey to medium oak range. You just don’t really think about the floors. They look good with a nice oriental carpet. If your house is very modern, then maybe some of the less traditional floors can look good otherwise I vote for the classics.
