Hello all,

Would anyone mind fielding a more of an aesthetic question? I've been reading this website for a while and I certainly have learned a deep respect for people who do floor installations.

This is a sort of "save my marriage" question, please. After a year plus, my husband and I still have not come to an agreement about what kind of flooring to put down in our home. In our travels, we have wandered from wood to limestone, to tile and now we seem to be back to considering installing a wood (engineered because we have radiant heat in the slab) product. Our house is a 1960's Eichler, about 1600 sq. ft in Silicon Valley. It has floor to ceiling windows and mahogany exposed beams and an open floor design. We are being encouraged to use just one flooring product throughout the house (except bathrooms). My husband loves the color of Lauzon's Santos Mahogany.

Has anyone used Santos Mahogany for flooring and if so what was your general impression of it? And what color cabinets would you use to compliment it? Although I like Santos Mahogany, I'm afraid that the Santos is a bit too red and not "restful". Our backyard and front yard are an informal Japanese garden. I like Santos Mahogany in our big open kichen/dining/living room but not so wild about it in the small bedrooms. Although we have a lot of windows the house isn't light and bright because of all the trees in the yard.

P.S . My husband has fallen in love with a rich deep green granite with a rusty reddish purpleish veins in it for our island and kitchen counter tops. It is quite handsome.

How does one ever pull the trigger on a project from little scraps of granite and wood?

Any ideas would be welcome.

Why not basket-weave wood and granite? It makes for a stunning floor when done properly.

Why? There are many, many designer homes with different flooring in various rooms. Put together seamlessly with borders and inlays it can have a stunning effect. A good designer would not discourage the use of different materials(even different woods) to create different atmospheres in separate parts of the house as it is desirable

Hello again & thanks for your ideas.

I do like the basketweave Santos Mahogany. Although I'm pretty sure the designers would find it too busy in an Eichler. Or that it would create a tension or some darn thing.

Here's a website dedicated to Eichlers if you care to look at them; it is called eichlernetwork.com.

I think the reason is that the house's architecture calls for simplicity. In addition, one type of flooring seems to make the house bigger and less chopped up.


Regards,
DSB

Being from the SF bay area, I have worked in some of those Eichler homes and I understand some of what you're saying. IMO, those homes benefit from a oriental decoration theme. I'm not saying you need to go overboard but simple, natural materials with simple straight lines seem to blend best with that architecture. For wood choices, teak and bamboo would be obvious because they are from the orient. But so is rosewood and Santos looks sorta similar. I have seen dark and light colored floors used in oriental decor. If the walls are dark or stained, then perhaps sticking to a lighter colored floor would be best. If your keep the walls light colored, you could go with darker floors. I also like the idea of using other marerials although maybe not combined. Something like a greenish, irregular shaped slate would be keeping with the Eichler tradition for the entry, baths, kitchen, laundry. Wood, either light or dark, should be linear, not a square parquet. Are your walls paneled? Many of them were. Perhaps at this point, bringing in a designer will help tie everything together.

Hello Gary,

Thank you for your comments. I like your idea of doing green slate (Vermont?) in the entrance way etc. And thank you for your comments on light/dark balancing.

We don't have the characteristic mahogany paneling still up. It was taken out by previous owner. The ceiling was painted over white. Only the exposed vertical beams and window paneling are the natural reddish color (mahogany?). It has a very earthy feel to it from the wood which blends well with the outside Japanese garden.

Regards,
DSB