Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood flooring is one of the most popular types of flooring. For many years, home owners have preferred hardwood over other types of flooring because of a number of reasons. This type of flooring is elegant and stylish and can easily add beauty and sophistication in any room and create a warm and cozy ambience. Many people prefer the natural look and timeless appeal of hardwood and choose to invest in it. In fact, choosing hardwood for your new home or when upgrading your house's current flooring will certainly add value to your house.

Hardwood flooring is also very versatile and is available in a wide range of color options, styles, cuts and installation procedures. Advancements in flooring technology have allowed this type of flooring to be available in a huge variety of finishes, colors and textures that will definitely add a touch of class and sophistication to your house. Because of its versatility, hardwood can easily blend into the décor of any house.

Modern technology has made it much easier for homeowners and interior designers to install hardwood boards. If you are planning on having hardwood for your house, here is a quick guide to the kinds of wood flooring. There are two basic types of finishes from which you can choose: unfinished or pre-finished (also called engineered).

Unfinished hardwood, also called solid hardwood, comes with a smooth and even surface that needs to be sanded and finished after installation. Usually it is a solid piece of hardwood and has a thickness of ¾" and width range of about 2 and ¼" to 5". The beauty of unfinished hardwood is that you have a sort of blank canvass on which you can create the look, shine and texture you want for your floor. However, it unfinished hardwood are more prone to the harmful effects of temperature and moisture. It is also not recommended for installation over concrete slab, since hardwood floor planks will contract and expand. However, there is a type of unfinished hardwood flooring that can be installed over concrete slab, usually with 3.8" thickness.

But if you want to save labor and time, you can opt for pre-finished or engineered hardwood floors. This type isn't a piece of solid hardwood. Instead, hardwood veneer layers are stacked together to a specific thickness, with the grain perpendicular to each piece of veneer. When the preferred thickness is reached, the board is cut into the desired width and engineered to create tongue and groove. The board is then finished to help protect it from the harmful effects of contracting and expanding due to temperature and moisture changes. Since the wood grains of the pieces of hardwood veneer are perpendicular to each other, the board is considered more dimensionally stable than solid hardwood. Thus, they can simply be directly glued onto the concrete.

When it comes to quality and durability, pre-finished or engineered hardwood flooring is hard to beat. The finishing definitely strengthens the hardwood boards and makes it more versatile, which means you can use engineered hardwood floors in virtually every part of your home. When it comes to design and aesthetics, pre-finished hardwood comes in a huge variety of colors, styles and finishes that will surely suit the look you want to achieve in your house.

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