White oak flooring
The White Oak Floor You've Seen, Installed in the Kansas City Metro
Solid or engineered, in the color your house needs.
Wide, pale, long boards with hardly a seam. White oak is the most-specified hardwood in the country right now, which is why it gets its own page here.
All Dimensions Flooring sells and installs custom white oak floors, solid and engineered, across the Kansas City metro from an appointment-only showroom in Lenexa. Jason advises on the floor, our own crew installs it, and one company answers for the result.
One wood, two builds
If You've Seen Wide Plank White Oak, It Was Probably Engineered
A solid board much past five inches moves with the seasons; in a Kansas City house it cups in August and gaps in January. Built as a thick layer of white oak over a stable core, the same wood stays flat at nine inches and wider. Either way the floor you walk on is white oak, and either way we install it.
Solid
The classic
- What it isOne board, top to bottom, up to about five inches wide, finished in place as one seamless surface.
- Why people choose itA forever floor. It outlasts the furniture, the paint and usually the owners, and instead of being replaced it is sanded and refinished to change with the times. It is also the floor buyers recognize, which shows up at resale.
Engineered
The wide look
- What it isA thick top layer of white oak over a stable core, so the boards run wide and long and stay flat.
- Why people choose itIt is the floor in the photos. Same species, same stains, same finish as solid, and a thick top layer can be sanded and refinished too. Usually the less expensive way to the wide look, because the wide board is built rather than cut from a single tree.
On price, we are competitive with anyone in the Kansas City metro on either build, and we quote the whole job once we have seen the space. What homeowners write about afterward is the installation.
Solid or engineered? Jason can help you decide.
(913) 839-1609The color
It's Called White Oak. It Usually Isn't White.
The name is about undertone, not color. Red oak leans pink; white oak doesn't, which is why it takes a stain cleanly and comes out the color you chose rather than the color plus a blush. Bare, it is a soft tan. The pale floors you have been looking at are a stain choice on that tan board, and so are the warm ones.
One room, six colors. Choose a stain, then drag to compare.
The room is a real All Dimensions job; the floor is illustrated in each stain for comparison.
That is the practical point of white oak. It starts pale, so it can go almost anywhere; many species start darker or take stain unevenly, which leaves fewer places to go. You are choosing a color, and you can choose again years from now when the floor is refinished. Jason will talk through the look you want, with no consultation fee, and you can see stained boards in the showroom in Lenexa or take a sample home to see it in your own light.
Wear
Hard, and Forgiving
White oak sits near the top of the everyday hardwoods, harder than red oak and a long way harder than pine. Its pores are sealed by the wood's own structure, which is why whiskey barrels are made of it, and why a spilled glass in the kitchen or a humid August is an everyday event rather than a problem. So kitchens, yes; dogs, yes; kids, yes.
What no wood does is shrug off twenty years without a mark, and the honest thing to say is that it shouldn't have to. A white oak floor can be sanded and refinished, and the record of those years comes off with the old finish. That is the advantage tile and vinyl cannot offer. A wood floor is renewed.
Wondering whether your rooms are hard on a floor? Ask Jason; he has seen every kind.
(913) 839-1609Who installs it
The Question Under the Floor
A white oak floor is bought twice: once when you choose the boards, and once when you choose who takes up the old floor and lays the new one. Nobody can see under a floor before it comes up, including us. What differs is who is standing there when it does. When the company that sold you the floor is the company installing it, with its own crew, the surprise is our problem to solve, and the person you talked to before you bought is the person deciding what to do about it.
The other place to look is the edges. Any crew can lay the open middle of a room. Where a floor meets a staircase, a doorway, a tile kitchen or a hearth is where the work either disappears or shows, and it is the part of a bid most likely to be left vague. Ask who does the stairs and the transitions, and whether they are in the price or in the change order. Ours are our crew's, and they are in the price.
Who decides what happens when the old floor comes up and reveals something no one expected?
How buying a floor works with a big box store, an online seller and a flooring company, and where that question lands with each, is on our why us page.
Weighing a white oak project? Talk it through with Jason.
(913) 839-1609What homeowners wrote
Claims Are Free. Reviews Are Evidence.
Every flooring company will tell you its white oak installs are beautiful, and so will we. Which is why we would rather point you at two things we do not control: the floors themselves, in the houses they were installed in, and what the homeowners wrote afterward.
All Dimensions has 233 five-star reviews on Google.
we can't tell where the new and old begin
Jason and his team did a fantastic job expanding the wood flooring throughout our first floor. We had existing wood flooring in the main entry/kitchen and they added wood flooring to our living room and dining room. All Dimensions did an amazing job of interlacing the new white oak wood with the old white old wood floors - we can't tell where the new and old begin. They also changed the color of our existing wood floors and again it's impossible to tell where the old wood stain was. We love the new color of our wood floors.
Real Reviews From Real Homeowners.
Whatever you end up choosing, you know the questions that matter for a white oak floor: solid or engineered, which color in your light, and who is standing there when the old floor comes up. Ask them of anyone. We would be glad if you asked them of us.
Call Jason · (913) 839-1609
You're Hiring a Reputation.
Not a Retail Clerk.
"I founded All Dimensions Flooring with a single goal: to combine the selection of a major retailer with the personal accountability of a craftsman. You aren't handed off to a rotating cast of clerks. You're hiring my 25-year reputation."
Jason Jespersen advises on the floor, our own crew installs it, and one company answers for the result. Talk your rooms through with him, solid against engineered and which stain in your light, and he will tell you what depends on seeing the floor in person.
★★★★★ Mentioned by name in virtually every review
White oak, answered
Why the wide boards are almost always engineered, how white oak takes a stain, what it does in a kitchen and around dogs, and what actually drives the price.
Why is wide-plank white oak almost always engineered?
Because a solid board much past five inches moves too much with the seasons to stay flat. Building the same white oak as a thick layer over a stable core lets the board be wide and stay flat. The wood you see and walk on is white oak either way.
Solid or engineered: which is the better long-term value?
It depends on what you're buying it for. Solid can be sanded and refinished more times than any engineered floor, so for a house you plan to stay in, it is the floor you buy once. Engineered is usually the less expensive way to get the wide look, and a thick-layer engineered floor can be refinished too. Jason will tell you which layer thickness you are looking at, because that is what decides it.
Is white oak better than red oak?
For most of what people want now, yes. It is harder, it takes stain more cleanly because it has no pink undertone, and it handles everyday moisture better. Red oak is the classic Midwestern floor and refinishes beautifully; if you already have it, it is worth keeping.
Can I really put hardwood in my kitchen?
Yes, if it's white oak. Its sealed grain is the reason it handles a wiped-up spill and the humidity swings of a Kansas City kitchen better than most other domestic species. It is not waterproof, and no wood is; a dishwasher leak left for a weekend is a different matter.
I have large dogs. Will they ruin my white oak floor?
No wood is scratch-proof, and white oak is among the harder domestic floors, so claws mark it less than softer species. Two choices make a real difference: a wire-brushed texture and a matte finish, which hide surface scratches in the grain instead of showing them in the sheen. And when the marks finally add up, the floor can be refinished.
My last floor squeaked and cupped. How do you prevent that with wide planks?
Most wide-plank trouble starts with boards that were only nailed. At five inches and wider we glue-assist, following the National Wood Flooring Association's guidance for wide boards: adhesive under the board in addition to fasteners, so the wood can move with the seasons without lifting or drumming.
What drives the price of a white oak floor?
The boards are one part. The rest is what the house asks for: how much subfloor preparation the old floor leaves behind, stairs and transitions, and whether the floor is finished in the factory or sanded and finished in place. The number comes after we see the space, which is also when the surprises stop being surprises.
Why do some white oak floors turn green or black?
White oak is high in tannin, and the wrong sealer or a water-based product used carelessly can react with it and leave dark or greenish marks. The prevention is in the finishing schedule, which is a question to ask whoever finishes your floor.
It Starts With a Phone Call.
Call Jason or use the form below. Either way it starts with him. Talk your white oak project through with someone who has installed both kinds, and come away knowing which one fits your house. There is no consultation fee.