6,000 SF of 7-Inch Solid White Oak in Weathered Oak
What TriArt Installed
Six
thousand square feet of 7-inch solid white oak, supplied and installed through
a new-construction home in Chastain Park, then site-finished in place.
Seven-inch
boards change the job. A plank that wide moves more with seasonal humidity than
a 2 1/4-inch strip does, and it telegraphs any dip in the subfloor rather than
bridging it. We checked flatness across the full footprint before the first
board went down and let the material acclimate in the house until it reached
equilibrium with the conditions it would live in.
Site
finishing rather than prefinished was the other decision. Across 6,000 square
feet in an open plan, a prefinished floor puts a micro-bevel at every board
edge, and the eye reads those lines. Sanding and finishing in place produces one
continuous surface.
Sanded through three grits, stained in Weathered Oak, sealed with a satin water-based finish. Weathered Oak on white oak holds a warm, slightly grayed tone without pulling the floor cool, and white oak takes it evenly in a way red oak will not because it has no pink undertone to fight. The satin sheen keeps reflection low enough that the grain still reads across a large room.
What Weathered Oak Does on White Oak
Choosing this color
Weathered
Oak is a low-saturation gray-brown. It reads warm rather than cool, which is
what separates it from the true grays that dominated the last decade and now
date a floor quickly.
It
behaves very differently depending on the species underneath it. On white oak,
which has a neutral to faintly brown undertone, it lands close to the sample color. On red oak, whose pink undertone pushes through almost every stain,
the same product comes out noticeably warmer and slightly rosy. Homeowners who
chose Weathered Oak from a photograph of a white oak floor and applied it to
red oak are usually surprised, and not pleasantly.
Sheen
changes it again. A satin or matte finish keeps the grayed tone visible; a
semi-gloss adds enough reflection that the color reads lighter
and flatter than intended.
Light
matters more than most people expect. In a north-facing room, Weathered Oak
reads cooler and grayer. In a room with southern exposure and large windows,
which describes a lot of newer Atlanta construction, it warms noticeably
through the afternoon. That's why we sample on the floor in the room
rather than in the showroom.
