Heart Pine Wide Plank Flooring

At Vermont Plank Flooring, the mature heart pine we regularly access enables us to mill planks up to 11 inches in width, occasionally wider. And our plank lengths are generally between 6 and 16 feet long. Boards that long and wide result in an expansive feel that makes small rooms feel bigger and large rooms feel luxurious because there are fewer seams to distract the eye, creating a vision of unbroken expansiveness.

Heart pine’s superior physical properties made it an essential pillar of a good portion of America’s early architecture. The builders of many 18th and 19th century homes, buildings, mills, and factories—especially in the Southeast where longleaf pine was endemic—relied on heart pine for both the structural aspects and finish details of their projects. And as those older structures age out and fall into disuse, the heart pine within them is being actively reclaimed and re-used, a testament to its durability. For those looking for that deep historical connection—and the ultimate in sustainable re-use—Vermont Plank Flooring also actively sources reclaimed heart pine, in addition to virgin timber, and will happily mill it to your specifications.

Heart pine’s aesthetic warmth, its historic sensibilities, and its dense slow growth grain patterns speak perfectly to historic and traditional homes and structures. But, like its cousin the eastern white pine, wide plank heart pine flooring accepts stains well, providing opportunities to explore darker or lighter motifs that can push its feel in a more contemporary direction. Vermont Plank Flooring’s custom finish sampling shop can work with you to explore the possibilities.

Heart Pine’s relative durability and hardness make it perfectly suited for areas of your home that are at the heart of the action—the kitchen, living room, family room, or actively used hallways and stairs. Due to its lovely warmth and richness, however, heart pine provides a welcome invitation, enhancing the comfort of bedrooms, dining rooms, and open multi-use spaces.

For bathrooms, basements, or any location apt to experience wetness or moisture, we recommend Vermont Plank Flooring’s wide-width engineered heart pine flooring, which provides stability and water-resistant security.

Planning radiant heat or a concrete slab? See Wide Plank Flooring Over Radiant Heat and Wide Plank Flooring on Concrete Slabs.

Familiarizing oneself with the qualities of heart pine requires a little knowledge about American history, traditional building practices, and silviculture. It’s well worth the effort, though, because it is a special wood. The longleaf pine, from which heart pine comes, is a species that once covered almost 100 million acres of the southeastern United States. But the tree was harvested with wild abandon, as its beautiful, slow-growth, dense wood was ideal for everything from ship masts, to the flooring in plantation-era homes, to the beams and timbers in industrial revolution era mills and factories, leaving its population decimated.

Family-owned and operated Vermont Plank Flooring sources sustainably harvested heart pine from one of the Southeast’s few remaining stands of slow-growth longleaf pines. We’ll work directly with you as you choose the lengths, widths, and finish that highlight the beauty of this durable wood while meeting your design criteria. And we’ll then hand-select and mill the planks specifically for your project, creating exquisite wide board flooring that will turn your home into a feast for the eyes.

Yes. New heart pine is milled from longleaf pine harvested from managed stands in the Southeastern United States. Reclaimed heart pine is recovered from old mills, warehouses and barns. Vermont Plank Flooring offers both, custom milled to order in Brattleboro, Vermont.

New heart pine starts at $11 per square foot unfinished. For antique heart pine, see our reclaimed flooring page.

Longleaf pine grows slowly, taking 200 to 400 years to mature, and only the dense heartwood goes into heart pine flooring. Supply is limited, and wide, long, sound boards are the hardest to find.

Plank width affects price too. Our heart pine arrives as rough planks 6", 8", 10" and 12" wide, so 7", 9" and 11" face widths give the best yield. An 8" face has to come from a 10" rough plank, which wastes more material and raises the price per square foot. Unfinished heart pine runs $11 to $18 per square foot, compared with a starting price of $10 for Eastern White Pine.

We start with rough-sawn heart pine planks and mill every floor ourselves in Brattleboro, Vermont. Our heart pine averages more than 12 feet long, and we cut out unsound knots as we mill.

We check moisture content when the lumber arrives and again every 200 to 300 linear feet during milling.

Both are classic American pine floors, but they look and wear differently.

• Color: Heart pine has warm amber-to-red tones that deepen over time. Eastern White Pine starts cream to honey.
• Density: Heart pine is much denser, so it dents less. Eastern White Pine is soft and develops a patina with use.
• Width: Heart pine comes 4" to 11" wide. Eastern White Pine comes up to 19" wide in solid.
• Price: Heart pine starts at $11 per square foot unfinished, Eastern White Pine at $10.

Both come in solid or engineered planks, and both work with radiant heat. Compare them on our Eastern White Pine page.