We did it again! After six months of living with our beautiful HEWN floors downstairs, we installed them into the main living area of our home which includes the front entrance, formal living room, dining room, and kitchen!
I talked about the install process a lot in my first post which you can see here. In this post, however, I want to cover a bit more about how the HEWN floors have been holding up, what I’ve been doing to care for them, and the new baseboards we added to finish them off.
But first, a few before and after photos of the updated areas. I can’t even with how amazing they look now. It’s almost like a new build! Updated flooring and new fresh baseboard trim is the perfect way to take a room from dated to clean and modern!
HEWN with Animals
Bruno is a 140-pound teddy bear. He’s also uncoordinated, his paws are the size of a man’s hands, and he drools. Like, a lot. If anyone was made to test these floors, it was him.
And Bruno doesn’t take his job lightly. From running around chasing cats and kids, to crashing into walls because he didn’t realize they were there, he’s put in the time and effort.
If that’s not enough (and believe me, it is) he’s tried staining the floors with puddles of drool as he sits patiently watching me make dinner. Praying I’ll drop something. Yet his drool (that indeed does stain the couch, in case you were wondering) is no match for these floors.
And lastly, his efforts to make wear marks in front of our large living room windows have also proved fruitless. No matter how many times he walks back and forth, nails clicking, waiting for the neighbor dogs to go past on their daily walks so he can bark at them, the floors remain unphased.
HEWN floors 1, Bruno 0.
The cats are also not gentle. They love to have their daily scuffles with each other. One has the sunny spot that the other was eyeing. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, claws go out as they run around the house, chasing each other with mad ferocity, while the rest of us look up in shocked bewilderment as to what’s going on.
HEWN 1, Cats 0.
HEWN WITH KIDS
Both my kids are floor testers, but I’d have to say, Tyrion takes the cake for really giving it an A for effort in this department.
He loves Hotwheels. Old and new, large and small. And he drives them . . . all over my new floors. Some are antique pot metal cars passed down from family, others are plastic, yet all of them he pushes on as hard as he can while pretending they spin out, drift, and crash.
To be truthful, I was worried. He absolutely made scratches on our old hardwood floors. So, the first time he did a spin out with his dad’s 1970’s pot metal car, I cringed. Walking over nonchalantly I ran my toes over the area of concern, and nothing. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I headed back to my task at hand, smiling as my boy played in all his glory with his 567 tiny cars. (They’re almost as bad as legos. Almost.)
And if we’re completely honest, I’m not a gentle doe skipping across the floors with care either. I’m basically an “Accident waiting to happen”, as my husband would say. (In a very loving and devoted manner of course.)
I drop things.
Usually knives while I’m cooking. I’m surprised all my toes are intact at this point in my life. I also love to drop coffee cups freshly filled with hot liquids, scissors, and I’ve been known to miss the fridge shelf and drop mason jars filled with salsa, marinara, and other red sauces onto my floors, shattering glass and sending said sauces exploding to every surface of my kitchen. I’ll continue to find little red dots for months to come. But I digress.
All of this to say, the floors have held up amazingly. The Whalen’s don’t take it easy on things. The end.
HEWN Floors Maintenence and Care
I don’t do a lot of chemicals in my house. We use dryer balls instead of dryer sheets, you can read why here. I don’t use Windex, Clorox wipes, or other chemicals in my home. I’ve found most don’t work well, they waste money, are unhealthy, and I simply don’t need them.
Most of that info is a different talk for another time. What I’m getting at here is, I just use water to clean my floors. No soaps, chemicals, or residue to worry about.
For vacuuming, I use a eufy robotic vacuum that I love with all my heart. You can read about it here. (Also check out that post for some crazy photos of our living room before we redid the fireplace and floors!)
As for moping, I simply use a microfiber mop. I rinse the mop head in hot water, squeeze it out, place it on the floor, and within a few minutes, all my floors are clean. My favorite mop is the Mission Mop from Norwex. (Not an affiliate link and I don’t sell Norwex, I just really love their clean products.)
Other floor care
Truthfully, these floors are so easy to care for. And this is nice, because I have so many other things that take up space in my brain. Worrying about floor care shouldn’t be one of them.
The only other items of note to impart here are: Lift furniture, (make sure to lift with your knees too, no thrown out backs please) don’t drag across the floors. I don’t care how amazing said floors are, if you’re pulling or pushing a heavy piece of furniture with sharp-edged feet, you will most likely scratch the floors. It’s a simple truth.
Also, we have furniture pads under the legs of our 700 pound piano. Because . . . well I don’t feel that needs much explaining.
My favorite set of pads are these ones from Amazon. They come in so many sizes.
Installing baseboards
Baseboard install is a super easy process. My husband outlined it in this quick tutorial video.
And that’s it. My full, gushing review of our updated flooring. I’ll leave you with the words of my brother-in-law, who was our installer, when he finished with the flooring.
“I’ve been putting down floors for over 25 years now. These are some of the best I’ve ever worked with. And that’s saying something.”
HEWN Floor type: Elite in color grain
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