Can You Have Two Different Color Hardwood Flooring From Room to Room?

Risks of a Color Mix

• Used throughout a home, a single hardwood floor finish creates continuity, especially if you have an open floor plan. It helps unify rooms with different color schemes and decor styles. Because the eye flows smoothly along the floorboards from room to room, it even makes the home appear larger. Likewise, using different flooring colors in different rooms stops the eye and can make a space seem smaller and disjointed. Realtor.com warns that mixed flooring may affect your home’s potential sale price.

When to Mix

• If you’re building an addition or repairing damage after a leak, you have no choice but to use a different finish if the original color is no longer available. At other times, using two different floor finishes is design related. Because a different finish does draw the eye, you can use it to highlight a dramatic entry, for example, or to distinguish the dining area in an open concept interior. Perhaps you just want a darker floor in the den or a lighter look in the kitchen.

How to Mix

• When mixing finishes, consider plank width, plank direction, color undertone, tonal variation and grain pattern. When the planks in adjacent rooms run the same way, the eye expects them to look the same. Use identical plank widths for both colors or, even better, change the direction. If the planks in the first color run lengthwise, lay the second widthwise or on the diagonal. Woods with the same undertone look good together. Cool, warm and neutral undertones appear gray, gold and beige, respectively. Wood stains aren’t opaque. The grain causes tonal variety. If one finish varies significantly, use one of its tones for the second with a grain that’s less distinct. If both finishes have showy grains with lots of color contrast, they complete.

Tying the Mix Together

• To tie the two hardwood finish colors together, one finish should reference the other. If one room has medium-colored wood and the other has dark, for example, incorporate an inlaid border, medallion or starburst with dark areas into the medium-colored flooring. The dark accent areas don’t have to match the dark-floored room exactly. As long as the colors are similar and they don’t touch, the eye sees them as related. If fancy inlays aren’t in the budget, get a similar effect by using a one or more pieces of dark-stained wood furniture in the room with the medium-colored floor.

Application

• If you go bold with your flooring, tone down your furnishings and paint colors so that the finished room isn’t too busy, particularly if you want the floor to be a focal point. The Rocky Mountain Collection website suggests you match the undertones in your wood flooring rather than trying to complement the main floor coloring with the wall paint. If you have flooring in two rooms that presents a stark contrast, see that the transition point is well constructed to reduce the impact of the change and make the flow seem more natural.