What wood is used in pic #4? It's absolutely stunning!

Regardless of how many coats of poly applied, this kind of wood flooring is very susceptible to scoring and dents. As the owner of small but active dog, I can attest to this first hand.

I've gouged my softwood floor so many times, I have to say no. Of course, everyone I know that has hardwoods has gouges within 48 hours of installation.

But of course. Here in the South pine has historically been the flooring of choice. Ideally, heart red pine is used, for its hardness and beautiful color.

"But why not use a softwood?": pets, kids, furniture... life. if you don't mind the inevitable gouges, scrapes, dimples and scratches, then softwoods can work... however, the finish in the photos is glass smooth. i wonder if the owners will appreciate the patina in the years to come... i hope so. we had 3in fir stair treads in a former home and even the cat managed to scratch them. i already had plans to replace with jatoba before we moved.

"Slap enough coats of polyurethane on any floor and it will surely stand the test of time."... not to be the contrarian, but where are you getting your intel? polyurethane is inherently flexible and does not penetrate the surface enough to add nearly the durability (dimple/scratch resistance) that using even a moderately harder wood would give. an oil finish (tung oil, etc,) will sink in a bit more, but would be difficult to maintain for a floor and is not as abrasion resistant. you might choose pine, fir, etc. for its character, but you're fooling yourself if you think extra coats of varithane will give you the durability of a harder wood.

@modernguy: greenville pairs this photo with a photo of a pine floor, however, my money would be on oak.

http://greenvilleflooring.com/Hardwood_Floors.html

If you don't want the expense of hardwood, couldn't you just use Pergo? Inexpensive and fairly easy to maintain.

How much character does a floor need? It just needs to be durable, cleanable and suited to the home it's in.

#4 looks to be Oak

"If you don't want the expense of hardwood, couldn't you just use Pergo? Inexpensive and fairly easy to maintain."

Yes, you could...
...but I personally hate the hollow "Clack-Clack" sound from walking on it. It's also going to scratch and need complete replacing in 10 years or so.

Yes, softwoods will dent, etc - that's a patina that looks so great in a country house or a loft. They can also be sanded, stained, painted, etc and will last for decades.

Well, having lived in a couple homes with softwood floors and 2-3 large dogs, I'd NEVER choose it over hardwood. I'm all for distressed, with dents and dings and so forth, but the claws of several large dogs in high traffic areas (think two 85 lb dogs scrambling and scraping their way to the door as fast as they can to bark at the mailman and whoever else several times a day) do terrible damage. They make deep, irreparable gouges that totally remove the finish and go right down to the raw, splintery wood. You can get it refinished, and it looks like it's been through a war again in less than a year. No thanks. I've now lived with those same big dogs on 100 year old hardwood floors, and all they've done to those after many years is to create the pleasant, slightly distressed look you seem to be going for.

All wood will dent and that's fine because I like the patina of a used floor too. But hardwood isn't that expense. I installed my own hickory floor from remainers at Lumber Liquidators for $1/sqft plus renting the toenailer and air compressor. I just had the pro come in for the last bit on the finish wall where the cutting was tricky. It was less then $550 to do a 16x21 room.

ps I'm using the room now with just a tung oil finish and I love it.

My father used reclaimed pine bleachers to floor my old bedroom. Absolutely stunning. And doesn't get the abuse that it would in a high traffic area.

Ask this old house just had a segment on flooring, and contrary to popular belief, laminate flooring can be sanded and refinished. It will have a solid wood veneer that can be sanded 3 or 4 times. Also, solid wood floors don't last forever, they mentioned. Even though its solid wood, after a handful of standings it starts creating weak points in the wood and you start getting cracks. Which means yes maybe the hardwood floor will last twice as long but if it cost 4 or 5 times than you aren't really saving anything.

Jose, I think you may be thinking of engineered wood floors. Laminate flooring is just a photograph of wood (or whatever) on top of another material (usually some sort of particle board or MDF). Laminate cannot be refinished as you would go through the photograph. Engineered wood on the other hand does have a wear layer of actual wood that can be refinished.

"...and contrary to popular belief, laminate flooring can be sanded and refinished. It will have a solid wood veneer that can be sanded 3 or 4 times."

Not all laminate flooring is the same.

Yes, there are some where the top layer is real wood and is thick enough that it can be sanded and refinished a couple times before getting down to the substrate.

There are others where the top layer is real wood veneer, but it's so thin that one sanding would take you through to the substrate...
...then there's Pergo which is a plastic laminate - Not real wood at all - Sanding that would be like sanding your plastic laminate countertop.

"Also, solid wood floors don't last forever, they mentioned. Even though its solid wood, after a handful of standings it starts creating weak points in the wood and you start getting cracks."

Yes, you're right that solid wood flooring doesn't last forever, but this issue is different. What happens is that after several sandings of tongue and groove flooring is that you're down to the tongues, splintering will occur due to the thinness of the remaining wood over the tongue.

Polyurathane scratches no matter how many coats you put on. My puppy did a number on my floors.

I loved the beat-up ancient knotty pine of my old apartment.

I'm curious what folks think of bamboo flooring. It is way more sustainable than either softwood or hardwood, but I'm wondering how it holds up.

Also, the whole beat the crap out of wood to make it look distressed seems to miss the whole point to me. Sounds like buying distressed jeans. To me, the beauty of old floors is the decades, or centuries of wear, which you can't fake.

A laminate floor is exactly like a Formica countertop. An image laminated to a particle board substrate. It can never be sanded. An engineered wood floor will have a wood veneer laminated to a similar substrate. Whether or not it can ever be sanded will depend on the thickness of the veneer.
I would beg to differ on solid wood flooring not lasting forever. Many solid wood floors have been around for hundreds of years. In mentioning the thinness of the wood on a tongue and groove floor after only a few sandings, I would speculate that you are referring to an engineered wood floor.
It's also useful to check out the Janka hardness scale of woods. While a species like red oak is harder than white pine (1290 over 420), it is also much softer than many other wood species. Red oak is used very frequently, and we call it a "hardwood", but it definitely scratches, dents, and is subject to shrinking if not properly dried out.

BTW, the floor in image 4 (very shiny) is white oak. Not a soft wood.

we have friends who live in an 1860s house with the original knotty pine floors throughout the house & it's still going strong.

"Many solid wood floors have been around for hundreds of years"

Indeed - Those ancient floors predate modern milling techniques and were cut from dense old-growth timbers which were rarely, if ever, sanded. Those old floors were simply thick wooden planks butted up against one another - no tongues and grooves at all. In many old houses, the wood could drastically shrink in the summer and old sailor's techniques of chinking the floors with hemp rope, etc. would be employed to fill in the resulting gaps - gaps which would never occur with tongue and groove flooring.

I might add that in many old homes, people didn't keep animals in the house, nor did they drag heavy furniture across the floors and children didn't play inside - the three main causes of scuffs and scrapes. Children played outside and most furniture was smaller and relatively lightweight to be picked up and carried it across the room.

They also kept large carpets on the floors - in many old homes thrifty homebuilders would chose lesser grades of softwood in the center of the room and better hardwoods around the perimeters: This was because the carpets would cover the majority of the floor so there was no need to spend more money than necessary on wood that would rarely be seen, and the harder woods around the perimeters would not only look richer but wear better.

Good point bepsf. In fact, our issues now with hardwood flooring are really not about the wood itself, but our generally unrealistic expectations of what a wood floor "should" look like. The white oak floor pictured in this piece is beautiful. Now. I can guarantee it will be scratched within HOURS of people moving in. Regardless of kids or dogs. Attempting to maintain a shiny, impeccably smooth surface on a wood floor is impossible. Handscraping is one way to minimize the heartbreak of scratches and dents. Dark finishes are a nightmare to keep pristine. My favorite species is character grade American Cherry. But if someone keep animals in the house, I would probably recommend a commercial grade wood look vinyl plank.

Softwood floors are highly impractical. You may save some $ in the short term but in the long run, your floors will not stand the test of time, pets, young children, furniture, and high heel shoes. If you have endless supplies of time and money and don't mind replacing and refinishing your floors constantly, then go for it. If you are like the rest of us with more finite resources, I suggest a more durable material.

Re: Bamboo floors - I hear that while they are beautiful when first installed and a green option for flooring, they are considerably less durable. Bamboo is a grass not a wood. Therefore to create the flooring planks, all bamboo floors are glued and pressed together. i.e. all bamboo flooring is engineered. They therefore are softer (grass not wood) and only able to take at max 2 refinishings (the bamboo wear layer is relatively thin, on average 1/8 of an inch).

The old pine floors some have mentioned are "heart of pine" from old stands of long leaf pines native to the coastal plains of the south eastern U.S. They are gigantic trees that take 150 years to mature and can live up to 300 years. It is as durable as hardwoods and more valued (in the south).

If you are planning to stay your whole life spend as much as you can otherwise you have to be budget sensible. People have lived happily with soft wood floors for generations.

I have fir floors (fairly standard in the pacific northwest), but mine were installed over 80 years ago, and milled from older growth trees. When I renovated, my floor installer found reclaimed fir to match the existing. Mine don't scuff or dent easily, because they are no longer soft. I know other people who have installed new fir, and not been happy. It's just not the same. I suspect the same is true for pine or other woods. Newly cut and milled boards from young trees will not hold up the same way at all.

As other posters have stated, the word "pine" does not immediately mean soft wood. Softwood of any specie meant for siding, ceilings, and structure will not develop a rich patina when used on the floor - it will be trashed. A social event attended by lithe girls in high heels will leave your floor looking like it was attacked ny gnomes with ball-peen hammers (actual effect from a photographer friend's unfortunate choice).

By the same token bamboo is not at all soft because it is a grass (where do people get these "facts"?), and the thickness of the bamboo laminate layer in your flooring is a major factor in its quality and durability.

If you are going to put a layer of transparent finish over any material, you might as well use plastic.

All reasons why beautiful cypress is where I can afford it on my walls and ceilings, and the floors are all cheap and nearly indestructible ceramic and slate.

I have bamboo flooring upstairs and the original pine flooring downstairs.

The bamboo is great - but EVERY floor type will scratch! The bamboo stands up great to my 50 lb dog, but if you scrape a piece of furniture, it will scratch. However, the scratches aren't deep, and as the bamboo has a light-colored finish, the scratches aren't noticeable.

The pine floors on the other hand - nightmare. Total nightmare. Ours are over 100 years old, so when we refinished them (ourselves) they turned out gorgeous, with this stunning reddish patina after a few coats of polyurethane. However, there is no amount of polyurethane that will protect this soft wood from our 50 lb dog. It does not have a shabby chic look at all. It looks neglected and sloppy. If you use softwood with a finish that is the color of the actual wood, it might be okay, but the red patina on our floor is just the outermost layer, so all scratches show up bright yellow. Seriously, softwood is for people who do not own pets, never slide a chair out to sit down, and never accidentally drop things.

"In fact, our issues now with hardwood flooring are really not about the wood itself, but our generally unrealistic expectations of what a wood floor "should" look like."

Quite so, obleak1--

I daresay that some folks have this odd impression that wooden floors should remain pristine forever while enduring years of walking in dirty shoes, pets, watering plants and dragging heavy objects across them....
...but they'd never use their wooden dining table without placemats or a tablecloth or allow anything heavy to be placed on it because they know with absolute certainty that it would get scratched & dinged!

True old pine board floors - like those you find in New England - are usually wide planks that are not tongue and groove. These are the ones that lend themselves to the character of aging - and can also be replaced one plank at a time if needed.

I don't know about softwood floors, but logic dictates they wouldn't be very durable. The old pine vs new pine argument makes sense.

Anyway, I currently have handscraped and dyed bamboo floors. My wife and I installed them almost two years ago, now. We have a med-long-haired 45-lb dog that has definitely made her mark on the floors (DON'T excuse the pun). Though we were told it was as hard as your average hardwood, I can't really compare b/c we've never had any other type of wood floor. That said, furniture, dogs, gravel-in-shoe-treads, and plastic furniture feet have all made scratches/gouges.

I don't think bamboo is any better or worse than hardwood for flooring, but it is definitely cheaper.

And maybe worth more style points than laminate.

I think it matters where you're putting the floor. This article is about a barns, attics, and basements--not all of those are necessarily areas with high pet/kid traffic and people sliding chairs all over the place. Plus, the whole point of using a softer wood is to get it all beat up (hence, distressing it right out of the gate with chains and stuff). Obviously, the gouges and grooves will look different depending on what's making them. If you have big dogs, it's probably not the best idea to use a softer wood, because you get these wispy, spidery lines that look just plain ugly. That being said, I have pine floors in the large shed where I play music, and they look great all scuffed up from equipment and shoes (no kids or dogs allowed in there, though).

I have original yellow pine tongue-and-groove floors in my 1916 home. They were breathtaking when first refinished, but they scratch, dent and gouge if you look at them too hard. They were definitely meant to be covered with rugs.

Meh. DH and I just had pre-finished 3/4" oak laid in our condo. It came out to be less than $5/ square foot. If you do the right shopping/comparing/pricing, you can get hardwood. I have a little dog, so I wouldn't consider a soft wood.

We've had lighter toned bamboo floors in our house (from lumber liquidators, their cheaper brand) for a year & a half. While they do get scratches if you attack them (had a chair grind into them a bit), most day to day wear isnt noticeable unless you look at it in weird light. Pet scratches & things blend in nicely. We really have liked the bamboo soo much..it brightens the house up a LOT

This article is ridiculous. The pine shown in the first picture is intended for paneling of soffit. It wouldn't last the time it would take to install it. And then a picture of white oak? Advice should be given by those who actually know what they're talking about.

If finished with oils and not standard finishes like polyurethane, softer woods actually look BETTER when exposed to things like dog toenails, bumps and high heels. But pine, I'm not too sure about.

The thing is that when soft wood is oiled properly, the dents you get in the wood are just that, dents. They're much more elongated and natural looking. Wheras hardwoods end up with big, usually off colored white scratches in them.

So, HeritageWoodworks is right that the pine here is paneling pine. But not every soft wood is a disaster to use as flooring. You have to know what you are getting yourself into in terms of wear. I personally would prefer a softer wood because it dents more naturally and softly and doesn't require a resurfacing every time you drop something on it if it's not lacquered up on top.

Anyone with cheap IKEA pine furniture knows pine scratches and dents easily. Do a crossword with a ballpoint pen and you'll find the letters embedded on your table top. ... that's what'll happen to softwood floors over time, too.

I agree with the majority of everyone else here: wood floors do not remain pristine, no matter how hard they are. And the softwood floors of yesteryear are by no means equivalent to those you'll get today. Old growth pine and fir and cedar have tight grains and strong structure. Flooring made from them was frequently rough-hewn and also regularly cut in thin strips that didn't show damage nearly as easily as wider planks (or, just as often, the 2-inch part of a 2x6 standing on edge, THOSE are serious floors, you could sand and refinish them forever).

The quick-growing woods we harvest and use today are a lot more looser-grained, and therefore less strong and less resilient to scratches and dents. Anyone hammered nails in to softwood boards? They dent like nobody's business. That would not be my first choice for a floor.

Don't forget, everyone's grandmother who had to deal with wood floors had a floor polisher of some sort, whether it was powered by her own elbow grease or some fancy electrical machine. The old hardwood floors of "yesteryear" were HIGH MAINTENANCE. The hardwood (and softwood) floors we have today will never live up to the nostalgic ideas of our grandparents' floors, not only because the wood is different, but also because no one is waxing and polishing them every two weeks to buff off the scratches and maintain the finish.

i agree about the expectations of a wood floor and that if you like a floor to have "character" that pine would be a great choice... but entering into it thinking that a few extra coats of poly will make those cheaper pine floor hold up like maple, oak or jatoba is just silly.

every material has a use and character. knowing what each will realistically deliver is a big component in avoiding disappointment.

i'm also a bit perplexed why the hero shot above is of oak (a hardwood) flooring in a post about soft-wood flooring.

Obviously softwood flooring doesn't make sense for high traffic areas and for families with pets and small children. I agree with everyone though here who says that any flooring needs to be taken care of and you will get scratches and dings on the toughest of surfaces. However if you want to save money in an area such as a barn, attic or basement and achieve a rustic look then maybe softwood is an affordable option. If the writer is going to attack the floor with a sock full of nails then he probably shouldn't spend much on flooring!

I think for bedrooms this would be acceptable. I just wish I could afford it.

I love pine flooring and had plans to install shortly after closing, unfortunately that's when I found out this was slab foundation and solid woods can't be used(in most situations)......so much for doing my homework. I meticulously research everything, I don't know where I missed that memo, so now I dream of beautiful, dented, dinged and thoroughly loved pine floors :)

My ex-husband and I installed red pine flooring in our kitchen more than 20 years ago. We loved the wood and really looked forward to the dents and gouges that would come with wear-and-tear. I do remember seeing my (and my sister's) heels making new dents as we travelled the kitchen, preparing our Thanksgiving dinner. I LOVED the pattern but I guess my ex didn't...hehehe...that's another story! LOL