Continuing Hardwood Flooring

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360
Location
Pennsylvania
We have standard Bruce Gunstock flooring through our foyer and kitchen. I'd like to extend that flooring into the other rooms on the first level. Since pictures are easier than words, here's how it's set up:

HW.jpg hw2.jpg

Basically, I want to extend the HW into the carpeted area. I have a few concerns:

While I could just use that "threshold" as a starting point, I wonder if that'll look unprofessional. Maybe not. I'd like some opinions on that. If it's decided that I don't want to go that route and seamlessly continue the flooring, I'll need to pull out the shorter boards and replace them so they stay staggered. How hard is that to do?

On that note, while this is standard Bruce flooring that I can get easily, will the fact that the original flooring was installed about four years ago be noticeable. In other words, will the difference between the old and new be something I should worry about?
 
(Not a flooring professional, just read lots of forums...)

IMHO I would go with leaving the threshold and leading off from that. In fact, I would consider adding a 2nd or even a 3rd board to make the threshold wider -- make it a feature, since hiding it is impossible.

I've read at least a couple how-to guides that talk about making sure that your boards are all from the same run, to ensure that the stain is the same. Even so, every set of instructions that I've ever seen, tells you to mix up the boards from your different boxes, in part because of potential colour variations among boards.

Add to that... just how long has that floor sat there? Does it get direct sunlight? Has it possibly already faded a bit, or had wear marks or scratches? Add all of that together and I would expect that trying to seamlessly merge the two floors would be an exercise in frustration. (not to mention a lot of work)
 
You could weave it in. Basicaly you go thru and cut out every other board back about a foot. Then you can slip the new floor into it. This of course depends on if the color is close enough to not show. It will take alot more work, but can make it look like it was all done at the same time.
 
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