Selecting wood flooring for one’s home is not a simple task. Knowing what to look out for and what to foresee being an issue in the future is essential in finding the right option for one’s home. The best wood flooring options provide natural beauty and go with any decor within a home, whether it be modern, traditional, or country. Hardwood flooring is considered a timeless building material that brings a sense of warmth and beauty to any environment.
Knowing the different types of wood flooring and how to maintain them will assist in narrowing down the options when it comes to selecting the right wood flooring for one’s needs.
The Best Wood Flooring Options Available
Hardwood flooring includes a vast range of shades, textures, and durability levels. When it comes to selecting the best wood flooring for a home, one needs to identify practical needs and aesthetic preferences.
Here are some of the best hardwood floor options:
Wide Plank Flooring
Wide plank wood flooring is hardwood flooring that is a versatile flooring option available in a wide range of woods, colors, and styles such as:
- Walnut
- Birch
- White oak
- Hickory
- Maple
- Red oak
- Cherry
- Heart pine
- Douglas fir
- Elm
- Ash
- Longleaf heart pine
Walnut hardwood flooring
Walnut hardwood flooring is a popular choice for those looking for mid-tone wood floors, which tend to make a room feel warmer and cozier. Walnut’s grain pattern is mostly straight and open, but can also provide movement at times, depending on the type of cut.
Maple
Maple is widely available, making it cost-effective for budgets. There are many different tones that range from creamy white to reddish brown, making it possible for individuals to stain it in almost any color. When choosing sugar maple, the result will be an extremely dense, durable wood floor with a subtle and attractive grain pattern.
Ash
Ash is even harder than oak, making it one of the best wood floors for those looking to install it within a high-traffic area. Fortunately, this flooring type has become more available and cheaper and like Oak, this flooring option has strong graining and light to gray color tones.
Cherry
Cherry is a popular hard flooring option that provides a luxurious look of dark flooring and is seen as a retro-inspired, nostalgic choice in flooring. This type of flooring resembles many exotic tropical hardwoods, which are hard to come by these days because of global supply chain issues, making it a top choice among the best hardwood floors.
Oak hardwood flooring
Oak is the most popular type of hardwood flooring. Available in red or white oak, this flooring option is durable and well-priced, and its light shades mean it can be stained in many colors. This is a top choice for wood flooring as it has a strong grain pattern that hides scratches, dents, and other small flooring imperfections.
Bamboo hardwood flooring
Bamboo is a growing trend in wood flooring, as well as other places within a home. It is grass, meaning that it grows much faster than trees and is, therefore, more eco-friendly. Similar to wood, bamboo floors can be solid or engineered, and come in a variety of styles and plank sizes.
It is considered a wood due to its hardness and is a top pick for the best wood floors because it is highly sustainable and provides natural beauty, sturdiness, and renewability.
More common types of hardwood flooring include:
- White oak hardwood flooring
- Red oak hardwood flooring
- Wide plank hardwood flooring
How to Care For Wood Flooring
Sweep And Dust Daily
Wood flooring can be sensitive to elements such as dust, as it forms everywhere within a home, and will settle into the grain and between floorboards. Sweeping and dusting daily can help to eliminate this dust from settling in the hard-to-reach spaces and ensure that one’s wood flooring is well maintained.
Clean Spills As They Happen
It is advised that one uses a dry or slightly damp cloth to immediately wipe up anything spilled. This suggestion comes from the fact that wood swells and shrinks depending on moisture, both on it and in the air, meaning that it is important to keep humidity levels down to stop the wood from splitting, and gapping.
Furniture Pads Are Your Best Friend
Scratches are a constant issue when it comes to wood flooring. This can be prevented by adding furniture pads to the legs of chairs, sofas, and tables in one’s home.
Weekly Vacuum
Weekly vacuuming can be seen as the key to keeping and flooring within one’s home clean, as well as making sure that no dirt is left to scratch one’s wooden flooring.
Best Wood Flooring Tips
When it comes to selecting the best wood floors, there are two main points to consider:
- Durability
- Decor preference
When it comes to durability, it is important to understand what level of durability one may need. If an individual regularly hosts large gatherings or has a high level of foot traffic, one will need a hardwood flooring option that is resilient to such conditions.
Regarding interior preference, one should question whether they want to achieve a more traditional look or a more modern one through their hardwood flooring choice.
The Best Flooring at Interior Motives
Selecting the best wood flooring can be a stressful event when one is not aware of all the questions to ask and the aspects to consider. Having an experienced and professional team to assist in making this an easier and more exciting task is where we come in.
Call us today at Interior Motives Flooring or contact us via our convenient online platform where our hardwood flooring specialists can inform you about the best hardwood flooring selection.
We offer a wide variety of high-end hardwood flooring types with different shades and styles to make your wood floor dreams come true!
