Hello and thank you for your inquiry! We wanted a timeless "mid-century modern" floor for our home so I came up with the following unique specification.

The floor boards are 3/4" thick x 2.25" wide American white oak, select grade, rift and quarter grained. For the finish, we did the following: 1) water-puffed the floor grain (mopped with warm water to open up the grain), 2) applied bleach (2 passes), 3) applied three coats of "country white" stain, 4) applied two coats of "Loba" water-based polyurethane finish (matte finish). The key was not to over stress the wood with too much bleach which can weaken the flooring rendering it brittle! So you need to be very careful.

We purchased the wood material through a local hardwood flooring supply house (to keep cost down), arranged delivery to our home, and hired a qualified hardwood floor contractor to install and finish it. I believe the total cost (material + installation) came out to $11.50/sq ft. It took about one week to complete both floors including our stairs (roughly 1,900 sq ft).

I wish you the best of luck with your flooring project!