DIY Solid Bamboo Wood Flooring

As we were dreaming up our home plans and all the details, flooring was a major component.

We knew that hardwood, whether engineered or solid, was our choice for the living area.

This Antique Strand Smooth Wide Plank Solid Bamboo Flooring from Flooring Liquidators is the choice we ultimately made. We are a few years down the road and we are still SO happy with it.

With that said, Ryan and I did look locally for our flooring, but the price difference between our local companies and Lumber Liquidators was $3600. We even took into account the 5 hour drive to pick up our flooring in Denver.

So as much as we wanted to shop local our hands were a little tied due to our budget.

Our intent is to have a fairly neutral floor in the sense that not every little thing will show like a damp footprint, every little water droplet, or speck of dust.

This DIY Solid Wood Bamboo Flooring fit the bill!

We also wanted striations of colors in each plank to mimic a real piece of wood.

Several times during our home build, I placed an online order with LumberLiquidators.com for samples to be shipped to me. It was so easy and helpful to see the flooring in person!

A very important component was also to pair the flooring well with our Amazing Gray wall color from Sherwin-Williams.

I want our house to feel warm and cozy not sterile and cold like a hospital. Ha!

With grey walls, white trim, white cabinets, black island and marbled grey and white counter tops I knew we needed to add some earthy warmer tones. The flooring was the perfect way to achieve this!

Looking from the living room to the kitchen at solid wood plank flooring.

After we arrived home with our flooring we moved every box to our basement. We removed the plastic from each box and opened up the ends.

Wood flooring needs to acclimate to it’s particular environment before installation to prevent shrinkage or too much expansion, buckle, cup, or develop deep structural damage. #nightmare

DIY Solid Wood Bamboo Flooring | This Antique Strand Smooth Wide Plank Solid Bamboo Flooring is installed in our living room, dining room, kitchen, and hallways. We love this hardwood choice from Lumber Liquidators because it is beautiful, durable, cheap (inexpensive), and has the farmhouse look. Our unique floor looks great with light grey walls, white kitchen cabinets, dark furniture, and modern or rustic homes. Design your home with an interesting twist-nail the planks down in a pattern!

Our flooring was able to acclimate for four months! However, 2 weeks conditioning time is typically sufficient.

We have been fortunate that after three years, we can only find two noticeable gaps between planks. My guess is no one else will ever notice though!

Floors in hallway in a boardwalk pattern.

When installing Lumber Liquidators wood flooring, you will need their nailer.

Don’t even try to find one that fits their flooring dimensions. Silly us…we didn’t buy their nailer when we purchased the flooring because we thought we could find one less expensive at Menards, Lowes, or Home Depot.

NOPE!

I swear no matter how much you plan and plan and plan when building your own home, there are still things not thought of especially when this is your first home build. 🙂

Bless my husband’s aunt Shelli for picking up the nailer at her local LL (5 hours from us!) and meeting me half ways on the interstate to save me an entire day of driving!

Ryan and his coworkers were starting the flooring on Monday and we couldn’t find a nailer by Friday morning.

{Insert panic and SO.MANY. phone calls to every construction supply business in Rapid City.}

So I called Lumber Liquidators Friday afternoon in Sioux Falls where Shelli lives and she met the kids and I Saturday morning at a gas station off the interstate. #memories

After having this in our home for a few years now we have noticed how durable the flooring is. The bamboo is incredibly strong and does not dent or chip.

However, the protective finish does scratch more easily than we thought it would.

If you have larger-sized dogs in your home, this may not be the floor for you as it scratches easily. Their nails, unless they are extremely trimmed and rounded, will definitely scratch this flooring when they get excited and “peel out”.

Discoloration of wood flooring next to a sliding glass door. — We had a rug near this NE facing door for a couple years and when I removed it you could definitely see discoloration due to the sun. This is the only place we have seen this fading.

As you can see in these photos, we chose to run the planks in a different pattern to break up the large space we installed the flooring.

I especially love the diagonal pattern in the kitchen pantry!

Pantry floor with diagonal wood floor planks.

It was Ryan’s idea to run the planks in the two “hallways” like a boardwalk and I love how our kitchen flooring is set apart from the living room and dining room.

Well that’s a wrap! We really hope our experience has helped you decide what flooring to choose in your own home.