Timber Floors

What Works?

I love timber & its not a phase. I'll never grow out of this one. 

We purchased our first home about 15 years ago. It was a tiny painted cedar cottage that we had to cut & relocate from 45km south of where our block was. Once relocated it sat neat on a large block just a stones throw from the beach.

I fell in love when I first spotted the modest little cottage, but I was enamoured with one thing, the hardwood Brushbox floors. 

Little did I know it at the time but this little cottage would ignite in me a love for living with timber floors under foot.

We have now owned 5 properties & 3 of them we have built from scratch. The last 4 have had timber throughout & the timber really makes a visual impact & also helps to sell the houses in my opinion. 

"Wow, what timber is that?" is what we hear the most about our houses when people visit so I thought Id write about it & share what Ive learned. 

We have had 3 types of hardwood timber floors in our houses so we have lived on 3 different hardwood timbers in 4 houses (2 had Wormy Chestnut). This gives me experience in how well it works, whether it stands up to a bit of wear & tear, what looks good, is easy to decorate with etc.

Timber has a Janka (hardness) rating, the higher the number the harder the floor. I will list that with each species below.

Brushbox (Lophostemon Confertus):

Used In our cottage

Janka: 9.5

Colour Variation:Pale pink to redish brown

This timber is beautiful & hard to mark, scratch or dent. It is possible but it really was very hard wearing & stood the test of time.

Blackbutt (Eucalyptus Pilularis)

Used In Build 1

Janka: 9.1

Colour Variation: Cream to light brown with light tinge of pink

Beautiful even colour & very hard wearing. Takes lots of hits & doesn't mark easily.

Wormy Chestnut (Eucalyptus Obliqua, Sieberi & Fastigata)

Used In Build 2 & 3

Janka: 7.5

Colour Variation: Pink, blonde cream, black & honey. It goes with everything. Three species of Eucalyptus mixed together give this timber its beautiful colours & character.

Summing Up: 

 My favourite by far is Wormy Chestnut because I love its colour & character but it certainly marks, scratches & dents more easily compared to the other species.  

It has the most incredible colour & markings. With 3 species of Eucalyptus mixed together & natural markings provided by bushfire, trees stunting their growth to cope with the environment, squiggly worms & black beetles all leaving their marks. The character is unbeatable & if you like a mix of blonde tones with hits of honey, chocolate & black its perfect.

I came across Wormy Chestnut by pure accident. We had ordered Blackbutt for our second build but the order was not going to arrive in time. Our builder gave me 4 timber samples to choose from. They were about 2cms long & I was nervous! Picking approximately 200 square metres of flooring from such a small sample was a tough gig & there was no house to go & check it out in first as it wasn't used readily at that time. It felt like a huge risk & possibly expensive mistake but it paid off! We loved it so much we put it in two houses & so have 6 other people in our area since we kicked it off.

 A friend saw mine, loved it & put it in her own beautiful home & the ripple effect spread. Starting from that humble small sample it has now been used in 8 homes & 1 office in our area in a very short time span & thats only the ones I know of(including our 2 houses).Each person has seen it in either my house or my friends & loved it enough to put it in their own home & business. That shows how aesthetically pleasing this timber is. People ohhh & ahhh when they see it & they want to know all about it. 

It goes with any style or colour palette too. Its probably worth mentioning our area is coastal & very close to the beach which is well suited to this style of timber & the laid back coastal look & feel it creates but you could use it anywhere.

Australian Wormy Chestnut Flooring will not collect dust or conceal dirt, making it a natural choice for asthma and hay fever suffers which also suited us.

Notes:

We've used oil finish on one wormy & a matt finish on the other. I love the matt but oil is also great.

We clean our timber floors with water & an Enjo mop.

Lift don't slide furniture on timber to avoid scratches & dents.

Watch small rocks getting under foot & furniture as it can scratch.

Put protective pads under chairs, beds, lounge legs etc.

We use a huge mat under dining chairs as small legs can mark timber.

Enjoy living on timber, it feels like a year round holiday. :-)

Some Images of our floors in our latest build all Wormy Chestnut:

Freshly laid no finish, sooo beautiful

Our lounge area.Finished with a mat finish, no high shine for me but it would look equally as good glossy if thats what you like.

Our kitchen & my signature combo of timber floors white & timber accents.

Love the markings, I prefer a floor full of character so wormy works for me.

Looking to create a seaside sanctuary? 
Wormy Chestnut will do it!
Dx