How To Choose The Perfect Wood Flooring For Your Home?

The choice of perfect flooring can be a daunting task. With an endless number of materials to choose from and a wide range of options to go along with it, from carpet to terrazzo, one of the most standard and acknowledged material is Hardwood.

Wooden flooring is an elegant way to give a smooth and stylish look to your floors and enhance your home decor. Selecting a particular product won’t simply help you to get the perfect flooring; a range of other factors also needs to be considered including durability, cost, feasibility, and practicality. Here are some of the factors that will help you pick the perfect wood flooring for your homes!

Types of Wood Flooring

There are mainly two types of wood flooring- solid hardwood and engineered hardwood.

Solid flooring is widely available but many companies still offer engineered flooring- planks made with a thin top layer of solid wood comprising of multiple layers of plywood and composite material. Although, both of them offer the same beauty of real hardwood the primary difference between them is in the floor’s composition.

Wood Species

Hardwood Species differ in durability, grain patterns, and color. The most common hardwood species are Oak, Maple, and Cherry. Exotic woods such as Mahogany and Brazilian Cherry aren’t as long-lasting but are still prized for their extraordinary appearance. Naturally, harder the wood is, the better it will be for installation in high-traffic areas of the home.

Type of Finish

The overall appearance of a wood floor is majorly determined by its finishing. Two similar wood species will completely differ from each other while one is finished in clear gloss and the other one has a distressed finish. The types of floor finishing sold are either “pre-finished” or “unfinished”. Pre-finished flooring is factory-applied in a controlled setting while unfinished floors are sanded and finished on site.

Cost and Installation

The cost of wood flooring depends on the above-mentioned features. The average cost of installation is usually half as much as flooring but is mainly dependent on the type of flooring and installation of your home.

Apart from considering all the above features, make sure you give some thought on the realistic expectations of the potential wear and tear the floor might receive from children and pets. Also, draw a perception on how often you can refinish your floors over the years.