"Wood"-n't you know

Maple . . . 

. . . or mahogany?

Floor. You step on it. You throw dog toys on it. You sit on it to do a jigsaw puzzle with the kids. Occasionally you vacuum it. Who would have thought it would be so difficult to choose one? Darryl and I have spent weeks going back and forth to a few hardwood flooring stores, trying to decide which wood is best for us. There are so many mind-boggling variations to consider. How hard or soft should it be? Solid or engineered? Stained or natural color? This is one of those decisions that I wish someone else would make for me. After all, when we moved into our house, the oak floor was just sitting there, waiting for us to walk all over it. In fact, it was actually hiding under the awful grey carpet, but we were happy to have it when it finally saw the light of day. After that, we never really thought any more about it, I mean, it's the floor. As long as you don't fall through it, it's doing its job and that's all.

Just as an aside, why did people cover up natural hardwood floor with carpet? It seems as if that was a fairly common practice in the eighties and nineties. Was wood so old-fashioned? I have heard of so many people who bought their houses, only to discover a treasure hidden beneath the pile. Just wondering.

Anyway, we have narrowed our choice down to two woods. As I'm looking at the photos they seem to look so similar, but actually their colors are quite different. The maple is more golden, a little warmer in tone. The mahogany is deeper, with a little more red. The maple is narrower, only 2 1/2 inches wide, while the mahogany is 3 1/2. The maple is stained, which means that if it gets scratched, the natural color of the wood, which is much paler, will show through, whereas the mahogany is the same color from top to bottom. But if we ever wanted to, we could sand and then stain the maple to a different color, while the mahogany will always be the same.

So if you're not busy tomorrow, come on by and choose. Whatever you say will be fine with me. It's one less decision I have to make.