Wood, wood, wood

The new hardwood floors are being laid down in the rear of the house, and when finished will match the cut and color of all the existing hardwood. Since we want them to conform to the more modern aesthetic in that area, we are purposefully omitting the traditional 5-plank border found in our other rooms in favor of just a clean, straight lie the whole way through. We are running them across the room (N-S) and not parallel to the hall both to make less obvious the places where the floor is not perfectly level (it is an old house, after all), and to further mark the transition from the hallway into a new space.

At the same time, we have plenty more wood to finish. There will be two decorative posts framing the large exposed beam, providing a complete definition of the structure. We're planning on whitewashing all of the exposed beams and posts to keep some of their natural grain while preventing their presence from being heavy and overbearing.

The wall between the kitchen and the rear wall will be covered with horizontal planks of the lath that we pulled from inside our walls during the demolition, a celebration of the original construction.

And yes, our temporary island countertop will be wood as well - plywood! I guess you could call that "builder grade." We thought of using other surfaces like butcher block or stainless steel, but it's surprising how expensive those get when you need 30 square feet of them. The 3/4" thick plywood will be sanded nicely and treated with a food-safe sealer (BioShield Herbal Oil #2), and as a bonus will serve as the mounting surface for the stone we will eventually install.