Old tile on concrete in corner of hardwood floor

by CJ
(Houston)

We decided to pull up the carpet and refinish the red oak floors underneath in our new-to-us house.

The living room is basically 17' x 12', with bookshelves/cabinets along one long wall (west).

On the opposite wall is am 8' x 22" section of old ugly tile over concrete (east). That wall is 9', butting up to a doorway and the corner.

The wall perpendicular to the tiled area (south) is also about 9', butting up to another doorway.

We've pondered hardwooding over the concrete in a few different configurations.

(1) Hardwood over the area, making a 2' - 3' x 8' hardwooded area 3/4" higher than the rest of the hardwood floor.

(2) Hardwood the area, plus an equal area on the perpendicular south wall, joining the two by a straight shot across from the corners of each jut out. It would be, basically, a triangle of 3/4" raised hardwood area in that corner, jutting out 9' into the room.

(1) While the 3x8 idea takes up less space, it doesn't seem usable.

(2) The larger triangle idea could hold our keyboard, guitars, karaoke machine, etc. or it could hold a seating arrangement, i.e. a couple of chairs, small table.

Neither idea seems natural and I'm not sure if people won't trip or stumble on the 80 degree molding smoothing out the 3/4" rise in floor level.

We've nixed the idea of building a book case on top of the area, since there are already enough bookcases filling the opposite wall. A fireplace would take up too much needed room.

We had talked about having a stage in the house anyway, since our daughter likes to put on shows and kids like to do karaoke, but 3/4" isn't much of a stage.