Wood flooring is a classic and beautiful addition to any home. It can add a warm, timeless feel and increase the value of your property. Before selecting the ideal wood flooring for your project, consider several choices. From appearance-related attributes, such as color and grain, to mechanical properties like hardness and workability.
Birch
Birch is a domestic hardwood variant that offers a natural, light look for any space. It also has good workability and dimensional stability. It can create furniture, plywood, parquet blocks, and kitchen utensils. It can be difficult to stain birch, so you should consider your color options before choosing it for your floors. It may be vulnerable to moisture damage, an issue in households with children and animals.
Walnut
Walnut is a dark hardwood that can add richness and a sense of luxury to rooms. It can also provide a striking contrast to lighter design elements, such as furniture made of paler wood. However, there may be better choices than walnut floors if you have pets or young children, as it is soft and can dent more easily than other hardwoods. It also tends to show dust and dirt more readily than different types of flooring. Other disadvantages include a higher price point and the fact that it will bleach (bleaches) in response to UV rays from sunlight.
Cherry
Cherry wood flooring is popular due to its rich, reddish tone that warms a room. It is a hardwood that can be sanded and refinished multiple times during the life of the floors. Oak and walnut are two other popular choices for hardwood floors. Oak is available and affordable in different kinds, including wide plank wood flooring, while walnut is more exclusive and hard. Pine is another softwood that can be used as flooring. It has a beautiful grain pattern that darkens with age. However, it dents and scratches more easily than other types of hardwood.
Maple
Maple is a relatively dense hardwood that resists dents better than most other types of hardwood flooring. It also takes stains well, especially light colors. With its sand blonde tones and delicate grain pattern, maple floors offer a clean backdrop that works with most interior designs. They’re great if you like to change your decor frequently or want your home to appeal to broad audiences.
However, the tight grain of maple can blotch with stain and requires extra sanding between coats. It is why many people choose engineered maple floors – these have a thin layer of maple over plywood or a high-density fiber core.
Ash
Ashwood floors are a beautiful, versatile flooring option. They offer a light appearance with gorgeous grain patterns that work well in various design schemes. They also tend to be less expensive than Oak floors and have a medium Janka hardness rating, which makes them a good choice for high-traffic areas. They also can be sanded and refinished multiple times over their lifespan. Ashwood has a beautiful, varied grain, which works well with stains and offers durability for homes with a lot of traffic and furniture movement. Its natural colors are also a great addition to many decor styles and are easily coordinated with various elements.
Hickory
Hickory is a less common choice for flooring but can make a unique addition to any home. It has a rustic appearance is known for its dark character marks and grain patterns that create a natural look. It is also one of the hardest domestic woods and is great for homes with a lot of activity. It can withstand the skittering of pet claws and the pounding of feet more easily than soft oak or maple. While hickory is very hard, it is less stable than other species and requires more attention regarding humidity and temperature fluctuations. Because of this, hickory is best used for engineered floors rather than solid floorboards.
Douglas Fir
Douglas fir is not a type of wood that often crosses people’s minds for wood floors, but it can be a great option. It is a hard and sturdy type of softwood that has good resistance to rot and insects. It is a great choice for construction and homebuilding projects, including doors, windows, millwork, veneers, cabinet furniture, transmission poles and structural beams. It also has an excellent strength-to-weight ratio and is surprisingly elastic.