A Homeowner’s Guide to Choosing Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood flooring is beautiful and can serve your house for a very long time. Hardwood flooring can seamlessly fit in any design style, and you can install hardwood flooring in any of the rooms in your house, including the basement.

Hardwood flooring comes in many shapes and forms. This blog post will help homeowners select the best type of hardwood flooring for their home.

Select Pre-Finished or Unfinished Wood

  With an unfinished hardwood you have the ability to choose from a wider range of colors and species to customize the perfect hardwood for your home or business. Unfinished is a little more time-consuming process but definitely a good choice if you're not loving any of the prefinished options or matching an existing floor.

On the other hand, pre-finished wood arrives at your home ready for installation. This type of hardwood flooring doesn't require an extra coat of finish or any additional modifications. Hence, you will spend less time installing pre-finished hardwood flooring. Moreover, the floor is ready for use as soon as the installation process is complete.

Consider Engineered or Solid Flooring

Raw timber has been the traditional form of hardwood flooring for many years. Many people still prefer the raw timber format, but some manufacturers also offer an engineered hardwood variety. 

The engineered hardwood contains several layers, including a raw timber layer. The other layers can respond to temperature variations in your house without affecting the structural integrity of the hardwood flooring.

Engineered hardwood is perfect for any floor with concrete materials. The advantage arises because engineered hardwood doesn't have the installation inefficiencies of solid wood. In particular, solid hardwood flaws can rise higher than the base of your doors or walls.

Engineered hardwood doesn't have this problem since you can attach it directly to the concrete floor.

However, engineered hardwood may be so thin that you won't be able to sand or refinish it. Therefore, pay special attention to the thickness of your wear layer of your preferred engineered hardwood.

Choose the Tree Species

Many types of hardwood species exist, and they are all very strong. Cherry, maple, and oak are some of the most popular hardwood species. You can also go for mahogany and bamboo.

Less abundant hardwood species typically have a high price tag. Even abundant hardwood species can be costly if the trees come from an eco-friendly farm.

In recent years, non-traditional hardwood species have entered the market. Some of these are included in reclaimed hardwood flooring. Reclaimed hardwood may not be as strong as other varieties of hardwood, but it is much cheaper. 

Decide on the Appearance and Grain Pattern

Grain pattern greatly influences the appearance of your hardwood flooring. The grain pattern depends on the wood cutting process. Some manufacturers sell hardwood floors with more than one type of grain pattern. The main grain patterns include: 

• Plain-sawn. The majority of the hardwood floors have a plain saw pattern. This pattern has grains that look like cathedrals.
• Rift-sawn. This pattern is one of the most expensive. Rift sawn has regular and elongated grains.
• Quarter-sawn. The quarter-sawn grains are also elongated. However, the pattern is irregular and has a 3D appearance. 

The size of the board also determines the hardwood's appearance. Larger boards may look more exquisite since you only use a few of them for the entire floor. However, the price of hardwood floors increases with the board's size. Other factors that affect the appearance include the oil finish and installation method.

Hardwood flooring is one of the most durable and attractive flooring types. However, you can only reap the benefits if you work with a qualified and experienced installer, such as Assured Quality Woodcraft. We have been installing and repairing floors for over 35 years. Our focus is on quality work at competitive pricing.

Contact us to get the floor that you have always wanted.