Pro's / con's of solid wood floor in hall?

[Tangle]

After moving into our house we're gradually working through doing things up. We're currently looking at the hall/stairs/landing, and trying to decide on flooring for the hall. Its quite long and thin, well lit by the front door where there's a big window but much more shady at the other end with no direct natural light. Both DH and I love the idea of a real wood floor (and were pleasantly suprised by the cost relative to good vinyl) but I'm a bit worried about the practicalities of it - in particular, how much TLC does it need if its going to stay looking good? We live in the country, so muddy boots are a frequent occurence...

Any advice?

We have a wooden floor throughout the ground floor of our house. In the hall we have a big thick mat at the front door - in fact it is the width of the hall and about 4 feet long. This means that all shoes/boots are automatically wiped as soon as they come in.

I sweep the floor most days and my cleaner washes it once a week with a hardly-wet mop and a little bit of soapy wood floor wash stuff.

Our floor is white oak and I think we're supposed to oil it or something once a year. We've never done it and it looks worn (lived-upon, I'd say) but still looks good, 9 years on.

It's incredibly easy to keep clean.

we have floorboards -- not sure what the original wood is? Feels much cleaner than carpet, but the wood needs to be maintained. Oiled, otherwise they can look a bit grubby

With the snow this week I've been thanking my lucky stars for our wooden hall floor.

I mopped it yesterday (I use Pledge Soapy Floor Cleaner in water) and the water was filthy afterwards! I wondered how people with carpets managed??

Anyway, ours is reclaimed wood from an old church hall so was "aged" already. Any extra marks just add character

By each of the external doors we have a recessed mat-well built in so that the surface is flush with the floor. You can buy the doormat by the square metre from any good carpet/interiors shop. This has worked really well as it catches most of the water,dirt and dust before it gets trodden in.

Oh, meant to say that ours is varnihed and seems to be bearing up well

We have the original wood block flooring. It couldn't be easier. We mop it (very lightly) if it gets a bit mucky and we just give it a sweep to get rid of any dust around the edges. There's a long runner down the hall, just to soften it a bit, and a large mat to wipe your feet on at the door.

I do love it and it's so much more practical than the carpet we had before.

er...thats varnished

We have american black walnut wood down in our hallway and living room and it still looks new 4 years on which is suprising having 2 boys. We were advised to varnish it with yacht varnish which has protected the floor from a lot of scratching and still manages to look newly polished when mopped.( once a week) swept every few days.

We have the same recessed mat thingy as norbert - she just described it much better than I did.

Just mind stilettos!

Stilletos not a problem (I've got wobbly ankles, DD's barely 2 and DH not that way inclined )

Sounds like its a good solution then

Those recessed door mat things - how easy are they to keep clean(ish)?

oak has been way too soft for the wear and tear in my house, would recommend a much harder wood, it's almost like walking about on a table top with predictable results

We have a real wood floor in our hall - have had it in place for a year and so far, so good! Easy to clean and still looking good. Despite being very overdue a clean lol!

Really good point about stilletos!

Our dining room had floorboards and they were absolutely trashed when a friend danced in her stilletos

Well, maybe not trashed, but you could definitely tell....

Recessed doormats are easy enough to clean -you can remove the sisal mat and hoover out the sunken bit. The sisal mats can be hoovered or taken outside and beaten (its amazing how much dust and grit comes out of them ).

You can also replace the sisal if/when it becomes stained or dirty. Our sisal mats have been in for about 2 years and are still fine.