Reclaimed pine plank , engineered exotic -- the choices in wood flooring just always keep growing.
There are lots of reasons why you should love wood floors. Not simply is wood beautiful , but it’s also soft and warm underfoot , simple to clean , and hypoallergenic.
A decent wood floor will last for longer than a century , and the finish may be refreshed whenever it wears thin. “Wood is a living material ,” says architect Ross Chapin , of Whidbey Island , Wash. , “and it brings life to the house.” Therefore desired are wood floors , in fact , that just owning them increases the value of a home.
Because of the fact that the floor is a substantial characteristic , the type you choose might go a long way towards defining the space. And simply because it usually represents a valuable investment , you will need to choose carefully.
The good news is there’s a lot to choose from. Decisions today include not solely old-fashioned solid wood strips in the typical maple or oak , but as well as flooring milled from exotic or regional species , or maybe cut from the remains of 200-year-old barns. The choices also include engineered solid wood products -- authentic-looking surfaces which could take wood floors wherein they’ve never gone before. And then there’s the increasing family of laminates which , while not wood , could satisfy the demand for a wood-floor appearance at an extremely lower cost.
All possess their pros and cons and more than a couple of similarities. It is possible for you to get a plank look in an engineered floor , for instance , just as it may be possible to buy prefinished solid boards and omit the dust and disruption of finishing on-site. All of us might be sold on looks in the long run , but it’s important to remember that when you are looking at today’s wood flooring products , there’s a whole lot going on beneath the surface.
