Three straight faces

The same three faces change with the room, the furniture, the grade, and the elevator. A bedroom and den stay at 7½ inch Grade AB: the face keeps a compact condo bedroom calm and leaves perimeter clearance beside built-ins.

A primary open plan uses 9¼ inch as the versatile default for Midtown living-dining spans and for most GTA renovations that pair oak with a modern kitchen. The long sightline in a living room is a different page. It is the living-room guide.

A great room or lobby rewards 10¼ inch, including Forest Hill sightlines and commercial lobbies. Confirm elevator package lengths before ordering. Wider boards need careful padding in older Toronto walk-ups, and door undercuts need a check when thicker underlay is stacked. Installation teams review tile and balcony transitions when quoting.

Grade AB keeps a wide face calm in a minimalist Yorkville interior. Grade ABC introduces visible knots that read clearly on 9¼ inch and 10¼ inch boards, which suits Leslieville and Riverside work. Free custom stain matching lines the oak up with millwork. Pattern SKUs stay Grade AB.

Cooler LEDs make Grade AB 10¼ inch feel gallery-like. Warmer pendants over Grade ABC 9¼ inch emphasize the knots, which suits hospitality dining. A large sectional shrinks the perceived width. Sparse King West loft furniture reveals 10¼ inch. A busy art wall may prefer 7½ inch or 9¼ inch. Judge the boards in the room, not from a brochure: the sample guide is how to read a board in real light.

When a client is undecided, order sample boards of 7½, 9¼, and 10¼ inch in both Grade AB and Grade ABC. Leave them in the room for forty-eight hours under daytime LEDs and evening pendants, and photograph them beside the millwork so the stain reference stays accurate.

Note the width on the drawings beside the grade and the stain. Mixing an AB herringbone insert with an ABC 9¼ inch border works because the thickness matches. Document dye lots so a phased GTA delivery still matches. Keep one dominant width through the open areas and a narrower secondary width in the corridors when the pacing needs it, and separate rooms with a threshold rather than a random change in the middle of a field. King West lofts often step up in width when the furniture plan is minimal.

Confirm the condominium fastening — glue-down or floating — before the width is locked. Elevator cab length for a 10¼ inch package can constrain an older walk-up even when the widest face is the one the room wants. Width does not pick the method. Concrete, plywood, and condo acoustics do. See glue-down, floating, and nail-down. SKU details sit on the wide plank page and the engineered collection.