Ofc it’s taken longer than we anticipated, mostly due to my cancer diagnosis and surgery. We actually had the floors mostly done by early Feb. Just a week after surgery, I was huffing and puffing, moving vinyl planks around to figure out the best layout.

BTW, I don’t recommend these LVP floors unless, like us, it’s a temporary budget solution. The quality is fine, but the lack of pattern variation was a huge headache. There were really only 4 patterns to alternate between.

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Also the color is different than we imagined based on the samples and the website pictures. It can definitely lean cool grey-brown next to our alarmingly orangey natural red oak floors.

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Pictures of this same floor species/color from the website:

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Someone may have noticed I referred to our wood floors as being “red oak” whereas previously I referred to them as pecan. (Who am I kidding, no one cares enough to pay that close of attention.)

One of the reasons we chose the Ledge Point Pecan LVP is b/c we hoped the grain pattern would be more cohesive next to our real wood floors. We liked the color (based on the website and samples we ordered) too. And we were told when we first bought the house that our floors were pecan.

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But it turns out they are probably red oak. When spouse removed a transition board between the kitchen and dining area (see photo), we discovered that the edge of the board was stamped with the location/mill info and it came from Arkansas Oak Co. or something. I can’t remember exactly and I guess I didn’t take a picture before we put it back.

But yeah, probably red oak, NOT pecan. lol.

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Would we have chosen pecan-printed LVP if we knew our wood floors were actually oak? Probably not! Although of all the colors on the ~website~ I still think the LPP looks like what we were going for. In reality, not so much. But I think with warmer lighting and not comparing it to the orangey oak, it’s quite nice. The ultimate goal is to refinish our real wood floors and extend them into the kitchen, which is why we chose LVP for now.

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I keep having to remind myself that if we had gone with my original desire, black and white checkerboard tile, it would cost 4x the price for porcelain and 8x the price for real marble, not to mention the extra time and labor to install and demolish when the time came. 😫

Plus, spouse was scared we’d crack a tile installing the fridge.
The LVP cost around $680 for our space and is super easy to install and uninstall.

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This past week I’ve been trying to figure out THE stain color for the cabinets. It has been very difficult because I want something light, something warm, but without leaning too orange, too yellow, or too pink. A nice warm yet neutral tan, like a cup of coffee with way too much milk in it.
The challenge are those dang cool brown LVP floors, our super orange wood floors, and ALSO the current red cabinets throwing me off when I hold stain samples up next to them.

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This is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated, as all things DIY tend to be. 😫

I am leaning toward stain 1 (actually stain attempt #13), but as you can see the plywood takes the stain differently than the solid wood. The doors and drawers are going to be plywood panels with solid wood trim (to hide the ply edges) so I need them to match pretty close to avoid a two-tone effect.

I like how the plywood takes the stain, but the solid wood looks more grey and washed out.

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I exhausted many standard pre-mixed options over the last two years when we started building our bed out of white oak (still not finished lol, as we moved on to remodeling the kitchen). So now I’m attempting to mix my own custom stain using this kit from Fine Finish Supply. https://www.finefinishsupply.com/product-page/renner-DIY-stain-kit

Is it fun? Yes. Is it frustrating? Yes, but not as frustrating as buying samples or quarts of premixed stains only for them to not work.
Do I know what I’m doing? Barely!

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Expand the picture to see the difference in color between the raw wood, bleached wood (yes I found a wood bleach and bleaching method that works on white oak) and the two stain options.

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My oh-so-scientific stain testing setup

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Here is my latest stain attempt. The 1st photo is the pure Light Walnut stain on its own. When I tried this mixed only with white and the clear base, it came out with a slightly green tint on my bleached white oak. 😫

So to cancel out the green and add more warmth, I’ve been experimenting with adding various ratios of red, yellow, and orange. Adding just one drop can subtly change the undertones of the stain.

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And here’s how it looks freshly-applied (still wet) on my two solid wood stain sample pieces. The piece on the left is actually for our bed. The piece on the right is for the cabinet trim in the kitchen. When they are dry, it’s likely that they will look different in certain lights. That’s been my experience so far, at least.

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