I read an article the other day on how certain materials in area rugs react with the poly coating on hardwood floors.  I never thought about it, but it makes sense... various chemicals layered on top of each other for long periods of time... something's bound to happen.  Though it's not a good idea to put large area rugs on a new hardwood floor until it's had time to age for 6 months, we needed something in front of the sink and the stove to protect the floor from spills, and in front of the door to protect it from dirt and gravel traveling in on shoes.

I found some really cute rugs at Walmart, but they have vinyl backing.  I'm not sure if it would ever be a problem, but I took this article's advice and bought some Rebond rug padding at Home Depot.  It comes in a roll and you just use scissors to cut it to the size you need.

One roll was more than enough for my three area rugs, and I have some left over for when I find a rug for the back door as well.

You will want to cut the padding a couple inches smaller than your rug so that the edges of the rug lay flat against the floor (you don't want people to trip on them.)  How much smaller depends on the weight of the rug... my rugs are pretty light so I had to cut the padding 2.5 inches smaller on each side in order for the edges to lay flat on the floor.  You can secure the rug to the padding with carpet tape, but so far I haven't found that to be necessary.

It's a cheap and easy solution... and the padding sure feels good on the feet and the lower back when you're standing at the sink or the stove for a while!

The hickory floors are finally done!  Boy, we were a bit worried when they started putting it in because we had no idea hickory had such a wide color variation.  The hardwood floor people had a hickory floor in their office, but they must have used only select pieces because it looks nothing like this. 

When we first saw the floor "raw", it was quite a shock... the sapwood was almost white and the heartwood was stark red against it.  We consoled ourselves with the idea that we can always stain it dark to reduce the color variation, until I read a bunch of articles on the internet that said hickory doesn't take stain well (which was in contrast to what the hardwood floor people had told us when we chose it.)  Plus, we don't get a lot of natural light in that house, and I was afraid a dark floor would make it even darker.

Anyway, the guys came over to do some stain samples, and we settled on a stain called Cutmeg, which I think is their "nutmeg" stain only lighter.  It was just enough to bring out the grain in the sapwood, but didn't make it too dark.  Now that the stain is on and the oil based polyurethane is on (gives it a yellow tinge), the floor is absolutely gorgeous!

It's a little "country", but the house is in the woods and the kitchen cabinets are already a little country, so I think it all goes.  We're not planning on decorating "country", but our decorating style leans toward "natural", so I think it will look great in the end!