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Home » Home Improvement
Home Improvement
How to Buy Wood Flooring
By Verra Ricci
The first element to consider when beginning to finish a room is flooring.
More and more professionals these days are choosing wood flooring. What kind of wood should you choose? There are many options to choose from. Making the right choice is easier than it appears. Following are some important factors to consider.
Which Wood-Flooring Type Should You Choose?
Solid Hardwood: This wood expands and contracts and sometimes creaks, but its natural beauty add value to your home.
Engineered Wood Floors: They construct these floors at the factory, gluing together thin sheets of wood and refinishing them. This results in a more stable product, because it resists buckling and warping.
Reclaimed Antique Wood: This flooring option is custom-made one plank at a time according to the customer's specifications. This flooring option is very stable.
Finished vs. Unfinished
One of the benefits of solid hardwood flooring is that it's available finished or unfinished. This is really helpful if you're trying to match an adjacent floor. Then you can go with an unfinished option and stain it to blend. But an unfinished wood floor will probably take several days to install, stain, and finish.
Finished wood is factory sanded, stained and finished, so it's easier and faster to install, not to mention much less messy. If you're installing flooring in a high-traffic area, finished wood is the way to go because it's so durable.
Important Things to Consider
More and more people are installing radiant heating in their homes, where the heat source is under the floor. If this is your heating system, then engineered wood would be a better choice than solid hardwood because of its durability. Strip flooring is preferable over plank flooring, since narrow boards expand and contract with changes in temperature and humidity less than wide ones.
Engineered wood flooring is for seaside homes, because it's scratch-resistant-and less like to be damaged by tracked-in sand-and requires less maintenance. For cottages, summer homes, below-grade installations, and any other interior that's not environmentally controlled, engineered hardwood flooring is a clear choice.
Some Simple Design Tips
One nice option is to use a lighter wood overall and then add a dark border. Another great idea is to drop in a maple medallion that looks like an area rug.
Mixing woods from room to room is becoming more common. Choose darker woods, for a den or a bedroom. Kitchens, on the other hand, need lighter, brighter woods.
For formal, traditional, or historic homes, darker wood works best. But if your home is country, casual, or contemporary, a lighter wood might work well.
Current Trends in Wood Flooring
The latest options include hand-scraped wood and "exotics" from far-off lands. For delightful grains and colors, look at options such as Brazilian cherry, Santos mahogany, and Amendoim. Conveniently, all are available in solid hardwood or engineered wood.
DIY & Maintaining Your Wood Floor
Don't be intimated by the prospect of installing your own wood floor. About 30 percent of people do it themselves. Anyone who can operate a nail gun and a saw can do it. Look online and at your local bookstore for instruction books and information to help you complete this project.
A great benefit of wood flooring is that it's extremely low maintenance. A regular schedule of sweeping and vacuuming is all you really need, a chore that will be made much easier if you keep a step-off mat at every doorway to collect any incoming dirt. Remember to never leave standing water on a wood floor. It's a good idea to keep an extra box of wood in case you need to replace a strip.
Natural hardwoods will survive a household accident much better than laminates and synthetics, since their grain and pattern go all the way through. Even nasty scuffs and burns that would permanently damage a synthetic surface can be easily repaired.
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