Choosing a type of wood flooring for your home depends ultimately on what you like best. But it can be difficult to determine what you do like best; the options available to you in species, color, and type can be dizzying at first. With these tips we’ll try to simplify it for you to help you choose the hardwood flooring that most fits your needs.
The 3 most important factors in considering cost are: Grade, Width, and Finish
- Grade – Determined by color consistency and natural characteristics such as knot holes, pin holes, mineral streaks. The cleaner the Grade, the more expensive the wood is.
- Cut – The most common is plain-sawn. Less common is quarter-sawn or rift-sawn.
- Finish – You can get hardwood in Unfinished or Prefinished. The advantage of Prefinished is it’s already sanded, sealed, and sometimes stained. Finished products come with longer warranties.
The most popular species of wood are:
- Red and White Oak – Most common and available wood with a consistent and sometimes rippled graining
- Maple – Slightly harder than oak with a very fine grain pattern but the lack of surface pores leave it with few stain options
- Brazilian Cherry (Jatoba) – A beautiful wood with dark, rich, natural colors and has a medium-spaced salmon-colored grain that gets darker with age.
Other, less common, species of wood are:
- Bamboo
- Hickory
- Tigerwood
- Cork
- Kempas
- Ash
- Walnut