We’ll help you find best wood flooring for you with this handy guide.
If you are looking for new flooring to do up your house, you might be surprised to find that there is more to your decision than just how it will look in your home. Sure, that’s the fun part and an important part, but let’s not put the cart before the horse. You’ll need to know that the type of flooring you go for is right for your circumstances and then decide from those options what you want your home to look like.
In covering durability, maintenance, and value, we’ll help you find best wood flooring for you with this handy guide. Read on for all the tips.
They Have Different Temperaments
Which wood flooring you go with will offer you different rates of durability. For example, solid wood flooring is not about to tolerate water spills, a scratch, or even an overly humid room. Humidity and water spills can result in your solid wood floors warping, so it’s important you look after them right. The good news there is that you can have them refinished and buff out any scratches and warping that have accumulated over time.
Laminate flooring, on the other hand, is not impervious to scratching, but it is harder to scratch. Laminate also doesn’t like water but will bubble instead of warp. However, you can get waterproof versions in a more limited range.
Your most durable option is LVT flooring, which isn’t wood, but vinyl designed to look like wood. It is entirely waterproof and comes in a range of styles, even beyond wood. You can get stone, marble, and patterned tiles if you fancy.
They Have Different Values
Solid wood flooring might be fragile, but there are a lot of reasons why people fork out for the option of authentic solid wood floors. For one thing, solid wood flooring will last for years, and it will raise the value of your entire house. A quick refinish every few years will keep it looking fresh, and, with a revarnish, you can even change the tone and therefore the style of the floor.
If that seems like too much of a commitment for you, look to vinyl or laminate flooring for a significant price difference. Vinyl is likely to be the most affordable of all three since it isn’t actually wood, but it offers a lot of benefits that wood won’t allow for like its durability and waterproof nature.
They Have Different Maintenance Needs
As mentioned, solid and most laminate flooring isn’t a fan of water, which means cleaning them needs to stick to a hoover for the debris and an approved floor cleaner with a lightly damp mop. Whereas vinyl flooring is waterproof, so you can slick a wet mop around the room with abandon, without suffering the consequences of warping or bubbling your floors.
Solid floors might also be quick to scratch but they’re also easy to solve. Scratches will blend in with the wood over time with no outside help, but you can also add a little wood oil to help things along.