Hickory Hardwood Flooring

[James-W]

As I mentioned before, I am helping a buddy build a house. It won't be too much longer and we will be installing flooring. My buddy is thinking about hickory flooring to match the kitchen cabinets. Anybody have experiences with hickory flooring they would like to pass on? I would be interested in hearing about the experiences of others, good or bad.

 

[MagKarl]

Ours has lots of color variation. We wanted it that way, but it can be a challenge to get the lights and darks distributed well.

 

[kTHREE]

Just finished ours. Mix mix mix.
We got some really interesting pieces and some really boring ones, dark light...ect.
Sorting between them all makes a little bit of fun as MagKarl said.
Involve the wife/girlfriend/SO to make it look "nice".

Get a new blade for the miter saw and a second on standby, hickory is tough.
I used 18 gauge cleats because that's the flooring nailer I had access to.
Would have probably done 16 gauge if I had a choice.

Make sure that subfloor is stupid clean and level, I'm talking surgical clean.

 

[James-W]

The floor looks really nice, thanks for the pictures! I will show the pictures to my buddy and I sure he will love the way the floors looks.

 

[PNWguy]

Just finished ours. Mix mix mix.
We got some really interesting pieces and some really boring ones, dark light...ect.
Sorting between them all makes a little bit of fun as MagKarl said.
Involve the wife/girlfriend/SO to make it look "nice".

Beautiful

That looks a bit darker than what I've seen. Is it stained at all, or is that natural?

 

[rlitman]

Beautiful

That looks a bit darker than what I've seen. Is it stained at all, or is that natural?

That has to be stained. The variation of lights and darks in an unstained hickory is even more dramatic.

As pointed out above, so long as you mix the pieces well, hickory can be stunningly beautiful. It's got great grain, and is quite hard, so you will be hard pressed to find a better wearing wood.

 

[ssdave]

I just nailed about 2000 sf of it down, have another few hundred to go. It's much harder to work with than oak. It's a lot harder. I had to drill and hand nail the edges; my 15 ga pneumatic finish gun won't reliably set the nails like I do with oak. The tongues split a lot more than oak under 16 ga L cleats. It's harder to rack it out and grain match because there's so many different colors and grain patterns in the Hickory. I kept 2 or 3 more bundles open at a time to have enough to choose from. I really like it when it's done, though. Overall, it slowed me down about 20% compared to oak; it takes that much more time to sort and rack it out. I really do not like the effect if it's just randomized. The plus side of that variance is I used the lighter color pieces to zone spots to bounce light around in the house more. It worked well for that.

I had a few pieces that had incipient splits in them that were hard to see. I had some partially nailed before I saw them and had to remove them. So, inspect for defects a bit more than you would with oak or maple.

 

[kTHREE]

That has to be stained.

Homeless depot prefinished distressed something. Wife loves it.

The tongues split a lot more than oak under 16 ga L cleats.

Huh, maybe 18 gauge is the better bet. I didn't have a single blow out that wasn't user induced.

 

[TRWham]

We have pre-finished 3/4" by 5" hickory that's been down in the kitchen about 10 years. If you like the look, which we do, it's beautiful and wears like iron, but in our area I work with many clients (residential construction) who are wound too tight to handle the wide variation in color and dramatic "flaws" in the wood.

I personally do not like to match cabinets and floors too closely, and find that most clients also go for more contrast between the two. Our kitchen has cream painted cabinets and the floor is a medium stain I guess I would call saddle brown. Right now, dark floors and painted cabinets are all the rage, but what goes around comes around in home fashion.

 

[yeldogt]

Hickory is a hard brittle wood with much variation -- can be difficult to stain. Like Ash it's difficult maintaining a unified look ... that said --- used both when I built my cabin in Pennsylvania. Has a more rustic look .. requires some layout skills to mix it up. Above was long length 4-6 wide flooring requiring sanding/staining and finish. I was able to get affordable local 2" thick stock that I placed so the underside was the ceiling below

Manufactured flooring is a different animal -- almost anything can be done in a factory. Injection satin and colored finishes can change the look of any wood .. the species becomes less important. Typically shorter lengths.

 

[theoldwizard1]

My brother-in-law built a hutch with hickory. He says, "Never again !" He could not sand the top to be as smooth as he wanted it.