The shipment of oak plywood came yesterday. Looks great! But then, for $720 it had better look great… This is the first time I've ordered lumber over the web. I got it from Cross Cuts in Portland. All together I got 20 sheets of two sided ¼” white oak ply. That’s 640sf! This will be used for a variety of applications. I plan to use it to cover the glue-laminate beams inside the house, for the risers on the stairs, and for the wainscoting. Also, I plan to use it for miscellaneous wrap around whatever. For example, I will use it to wrap the 2x4s that were used to support the stairs. Oh, I’m also going to use it to build the vanity cabinets in the bathrooms. I just hope I have enough!

I’ve been thinking more about the flooring. I’ve been thinking that I should try and install the wood floors next. I’m thinking this for several reasons. One is that a lot of things are depended on getting the wood floors in. For example, I can’t put the doors in, I can’t put the closets together, and I can’t put pretty much any of the trim in (especially the base molding). Also, if the flooring in the bathrooms are not going to be wood, I need to make sure those floors match up (level wise) with the main wood floors. It will be a lot easier to match up the bathroom floors with the main floors rather than the other way around. In other words, I should install the wood floors first.

I’m also thinking about what kind of wood floors to get. Before, I was thinking about #1 common white oak. But, I’ve also considered getting red oak. I like the extra color in the red oak especially if I use the water base seal which doesn’t add any color to the wood. But, I’m concern that it won’t match the trim, moldings, and stairs, which I was planning to use white oak for. However, wood typically matches wood, and certainly red oak will be ok with white oak. The trim will be stained a different color from the flooring anyway. I’ll just have to decide. Either way I’m planning to get ‘select’ grade, which is one step better than #1 common.

Also I need to decide for sure that I don’t want wood floors in the bathrooms. Jenn makes a pretty good point that wood floors don’t like water. But, as long as we’re reasonably careful not to let water sit on the floors, it should be ok. Besides, we currently have wood floors in the first floor bathroom. But, to be honest they don’t look all that good. Although I think they look bad because they’re just cheap parquet floors that have been scratched up by the previous owner’s dog. I can’t say there’s much in the way of water damage. One compromise might be wood floors in the master suite, but vinyl in the 2nd bathroom. Or perhaps tile in the 2nd bath. Tile looks great, but my concern is that it is cold and hard. Vinyl is warm and soft and can look almost exactly like tile. That was the original plan and we’ll probably just do that.