Hardwood

Hardwood floors offer the unmistakable charm and timeless beauty only found in authentic, real wood. They are never out of fashion and add real value to the home. Many interior decorators today prefer hard wood floors as the base layer and then add an area rug to enhance the room's overall color scheme.

Manufacturing of hardwood floors has improved dramatically over the years and today's hardwood floors are more durable and adaptable to different types of living areas within the home. As example, longstrip and engineered hardwood floors can be used in areas of the home that they would never have been permitted in the past.

Today's hardwood floors come in a much wider selection of colors, wood species, and widths. Besides the classic North American hardwoods (like red oak, white oak, maple and ash) many manufacturers now offer exotic hardwood species from all over the World. Exotic hardwoods give homeowners the chance to better express their own personal decorating tastes with a more unique looking floor.

Another popular trend is the hand-scraped hardwood floors offered by manufacturers such as: Award, Anderson, Bruce, Mannington and Mohawk. If you want a more rustic looking wood floor than be sure to see the hand-scraped hardwood floors before you make your final purchase decision.

Homeowners looking to use hardwood floors have the option of purchasing three different types of hard wood floors. Although the end results may look the same there are distinct advantages for using each type under different applications.

• Solid Hardwood Floors - are a solid piece of hardwood cut into wood planks that are generally 3/4" thick. (Above ground level areas only, not recommended for concrete slabs.)
• Engineered Hardwood Floors - are several plies of wood that a glued and laminated together to form a wood plank. They range in thickness from 1/4" to just over a half inch. (Can be installed almost anywhere in the home, including over dry concrete slabs.)
• Longstrip Hardwood Floors - are really an engineered construction but are much longer and wider. The top layer of a longstrip plank generally has 2-3 rows of thin hardwood strips spliced together to form a solid surface. This gives the appearance of having 2-3 planks locked together, but it is really just one board. Longstrip planks can be glued-down, stapled or floated over a wide variety of sub-floors and installed in almost any area of the home. This includes installing over dry concrete slabs.
• Exotic Hardwood Floors - are used to described hardwood species from around the World. these hardwoods are not found in North America and come from Australia, Africa, Brazil and the Far East. Exotic hardwoods offer unique wood graining and colorations. Most exotic floors are available in engineered wood construction but some are available in solid hardwood planks as well.

Once installed it is extremely difficult to tell these three different wood flooring construction types apart. Both the engineered and the longstrip have several thin layers (plies) of wood that are glued together. By gluing the plies together you get better dimensional stability within the plank itself, which allows these floors to be used on job sites that have a higher percentage of moisture content than normal. This includes basements and over concrete slabs where solid strip wood floors are considered off limits.

Another choice you have to make is whether to want a pre-finished or an unfinished hardwood floor that has to be finished in your home. The pre-finished floors offer a wider variety of wood species and saves hours of labor and cleanup. While the unfinished wood floors allow you to have a really custom, job-site finish and a completely smooth, uniform surface. You also get an extended factory finish warranty with pre-finished floors, but not with most job-site finished flooring.