What I would do -- if you really want wood throughout... get hardwood installed in the kitchen, using unstained wood, same type of wood as the rest of the house (i.e. if the rest of the house is Oak, use oak). The materials will be relatively inexpensive through lumber liquidators, but installation is expensive and may involve moving cabinets at this stage.

Then, you rent a sander and do the staining and sealing. This is not difficult, we did it. The results are great. Then all your hardwood floors will be freshly finished and in the same stain and seal.

Alternately, if you want an inexpensive temporary solution, look at last week's Washington Post Local Living which profiles a designer named I think Kerra Michelle Huerta. She has a good tip about covering ugly tile floor with an attractive vinyl cut to fit. The article mentions a stylish supplier - she is a high end designer and it was $260 for a small bathroom floor but beautiful.

Even cheaper, use an indoor/outdoor rug for a temp solution.

Not the OP, but how does hardwood in the kitchen perform over time? Do you need to use a special sealant or finish?

Anonymous wrote:I added hardwood to all my second floor bedrooms. The stair and hallways were already hardwood. They laid the new floor and cut in the wood to the original hardwood. They then buffed and stained the new wood (and sanded and stained a portion of the old wood, but not all of it). I would defy anyone to see where the woods were joined.

I think a lot of it depends on what type of hardwood was used originally and how the house is. If the house is less than 15 years, it should be really, really easy to match the wood. If it is older, it will be slightly more tricky, but still doable.

How much did this cost?

I added hardwood to all my second floor bedrooms. The stair and hallways were already hardwood. They laid the new floor and cut in the wood to the original hardwood. They then buffed and stained the new wood (and sanded and stained a portion of the old wood, but not all of it). I would defy anyone to see where the woods were joined.

I think a lot of it depends on what type of hardwood was used originally and how the house is. If the house is less than 15 years, it should be really, really easy to match the wood. If it is older, it will be slightly more tricky, but still doable.

OP, we had the same issue and were able to get the kitchen hardwoods to match beautifully.

Of all the people who have tried to match hardwood, I only know one person who it was successful. It never matches and always costs more.

Just go for title (or the vinyl flooring). Especially if you have kids. Kids and pets will ruin hardwoods - just go vinyl and wipe up the mess. They make messes longer than you want to think! In 10 years match the floors.

Anonymous wrote:When we asked at Home Depot about matching original floors, the guy said they usually put down unfinished wood and then refinish and restain the rest of the floors so they all match ($$$$). But...this was the flooring counter guy at Home Depot, not a contractor or installer. If close enough is close enough, just pick up a handful of samples in the right width and find the closest match.

But it's still not that much to strip and restain floors. The biggest cost with floor installation is the wood and the installation. The stripping and staining is the cheap part.

If money were a really big issue, I would put down an inexpensive but attractive vinyl that is easy to pull back up again over the linoleum, save my money for awhile, then match the hardwood later.

When we asked at Home Depot about matching original floors, the guy said they usually put down unfinished wood and then refinish and restain the rest of the floors so they all match ($$$$). But...this was the flooring counter guy at Home Depot, not a contractor or installer. If close enough is close enough, just pick up a handful of samples in the right width and find the closest match.

Just do the kitchen in hardwood. As another poster said, they can do an almost perfect match (we've done this before and in mid-process of doing it again as we speak). If you put down cheap tile in the kitchen, it will still cost like $5 or more a square foot including install. You can get a midlevel hardwood for $10/sf including install. Assuming your kitchen is 15x15 feet (a pretty decent sized kitchen), you're only talking about $1100 extra to do the kitchen right with hardwood. Now maybe the original hardwood is something so crazy special that it's like $20/sf -- the extra cost is still only $3300 which is so worth it for something as fundamental as the kitchen flow through flow. But if you don't want to spend that, ask the floor guy if they can do a midgrade wood that is a 95% match to the original floor. But I'm trying to think what original floor wouldn't be cheap to match to. Most of the old hardwoods were pine and oak - which are not expensive.

We expanded our kitchen recently, removing old linoleum and put in hardwood to match the rest of the house. You'd have to look really, really closely you to tell where the new floor starts. I really like having the same flooring throughout the main level.

We just bought a house with gorgeous original hardwood flooring on the main level that are in great shape. The issue is that we discovered the flooring does not continue under the awful kitchen linoleum. The kitchen is open to the living area, and while we know it would look best to redo the entire main floor, we're on a budget and looking for a temporary option. If we redid the kitchen only, would tile or a different hardwood be the best option? I don't love tile, but I wonder if dueling hardwood floors may be worse. Any ideas?