Tips For Selecting Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood flooring is cozy and upscale at the same time. It's a luxury flooring option, yet the appeal comes in its naturalistic profile. With hardwood, you have many options, from wood type to board width to finish. Home and Garden TV suggests keeping your budget aligned with design considerations and the lifecycle of the flooring when selecting hardwood. While any hardwood floor is going to complement your home, select the one that best fits your lifestyle.

Choose the Board Width

Hardwood flooring typically comes in strips or planks. Strips are boards under three inches in width. While the seams themselves may offer visual interest, strip floors typically offer more regular patterning of the wood grain. Strips are the less expensive option. Planks range from three to six inches in width, with extra-wide planks reaching seven inches. Although they are more expensive, planks allow the natural grain of the wood to take center stage.

Consider Exotic Hardwoods

Hardwoods such as ash and maple are common but beautiful. Brazilian cherry, tigerwood, mahogany and Brazilian pecan are exotic hardwoods. While they do increase the upfront cost, they offer a highly distinctive profile that adds clear value to your home. Exotic hardwoods often aren't as durable as their common counterparts, so they may not be suitable in high-traffic rooms. Leave the staining as natural as possible to let their exotic beauty shine through if opting for one of these hardwoods.

Think About Eco-Friendly Options

The modern by-word is social consciousness. If you want an eco-friendly hardwood floor, consider either reclaimed wood or bamboo. The materials for reclaimed wood floors have been harvested from old buildings, usually barns. They offer a naturally timeworn appearance. Bamboo flooring is made from a grass – bamboo. Because bamboo is a grass, it replenishes itself much more quickly than actual wood. Bamboo can be engineered to resemble most types of hardwood.

Select the Texture

The finish of hardwood floors ranges from glossy to distressed. Glossy floors look shiny and new, while distressed wood floors appear to have withstood the test of time. You can also opt for a finish somewhere in between, which offers the most neutral profile for your décor.

Along those same lines, choose a stain that both showcases the natural beauty of the wood grain while keeping the focus on your décor. A warm stain is most common. However, if you fancy a mod-look floor, consider either bleached wood or ebonizing.

Go for Solid Hardwood

Solid hardwood boards are made from a single piece of wood. This means that your floor can be sanded and refinished over and over again. This is ideal if you want the floor to last a lifetime. Solid hardwood can be susceptible to temperature and humidity changes. However, with a little maintenance, a solid hardwood floor evolves beautifully over its lifecycle.

Hardwood floor will be a charming, rich addition to your home. Simply select the options that best complement your design preferences and budget. Talk with a company like Carpet Depot Inc about the various hardwood flooring options.


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