Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is like the blind leading the blind. Honey or Natural oak floors liok dated and awful. I have them and desperately wish i did not. At least I'm not lying to myself. Haha.

Natural oak floors are what have been used in housing for almost a century. Are they trendy? No. Are they classic? Yes.

Anonymous wrote:This thread is like the blind leading the blind. Honey or Natural oak floors liok dated and awful. I have them and desperately wish i did not. At least I'm not lying to myself. Haha.

Anonymous wrote:I am so confused. I guess I don't know what "honey oak" means if people are saying they are "1980s." Because the majority of homes built in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s have oak floors, and it was the norm in each of those decades for the finish to be natural, golden, or sometimes reddish (mimicking red oak). Older oak floors typically deepen/darken in color over time to a honeyish color.

Can someone link to a pic of these honey oak floors that they hate so much that scream "1980s" instead of "1930s" (which is when my natural oak floors were installed, and they are what I would call a "honey" color).

Anonymous wrote:I don't consider my "honey" oak floors at all in my decorating. (In reality, they aren't "honey" so much as they are 80 year old oak floors in their natural state.) They are as neutral to me as the white ceiling is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to dissent. We had an older colonial with honey oak floors and I never liked them very much. The color was very hard to decorate around and yes, I thought it was dated. We stained them darker and I love them. They feel more neutral now and every color looks good against them. I've also seen much lighter floors that I liked a lot and were similarly neutral and appropriate for any wall color. For me, the in-between, kind of yellow/orange tint of the honey oak just wasn't that pretty.

I don't think you should change them because they're dated, but if you don't like the finish and don't want to work around them bite the bullet and re-stain them now. It's harder after you have all your stuff in.

i am the OP and you kind of describe how I feel. I don't mind darker and I don't mind yellow. My husband just doesn't want to pay the cost which I admit is high for 2500 square feet. We have so many other projects to do I fear this will never be done. I just want a very neutral base.

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to dissent. We had an older colonial with honey oak floors and I never liked them very much. The color was very hard to decorate around and yes, I thought it was dated. We stained them darker and I love them. They feel more neutral now and every color looks good against them. I've also seen much lighter floors that I liked a lot and were similarly neutral and appropriate for any wall color. For me, the in-between, kind of yellow/orange tint of the honey oak just wasn't that pretty.

I don't think you should change them because they're dated, but if you don't like the finish and don't want to work around them bite the bullet and re-stain them now. It's harder after you have all your stuff in.

Anonymous wrote:The honey oak look is technically very 1990s and so, without proper planning to minimize them, can really date a house.

We bought a house a few years back with honey oak yellow/orange floors and despised them, so they were our top three must-fixes before we moved in. But we painted the whole house first, and the change was amazing. If you'd asked a third party, they would have thought the house when we bought it had "white" walls and that we repainted with "white". But the original "white" walls were very creamy, and we changed to a cool white. This made a huge difference to the floors. We still didn't love them, so we stripped and did a clear water based poly on top, and they looked pretty "neutral" when all was done. (This is because clear coats, esp old oil based ones, had a light yellow tint to them that only gets worse over time.) They will never been trendy (at least not until the next trend rolls along), and no one will ever remark at how beautiful the floors are, but they are no longer an eyesore.

So if you keep the yellow floors and want to avoid having a house that feels 20 years old, you need to focus on decorating with cool colors. That means that brown, yellow, red, orange cannot be major decorating pieces in your house. If you have a traditional medium stained brown wood dining table, your dining room is going to feel like it's out of 1998 against your floors. Sorry!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not trendy at the moment but I wouldn't call it dated. Honey oak is pretty classic.

What would you stain them? Dark? Please don't. Light floors are classic and make everything brighter. I would refinish and put new poly on them. We just did that in one room in our 1930 house and it looks great. Goes with everything and feels light and airy and clean.