How to Choose Hardwood Flooring for Your Home

Hardwood floors can add beauty and warmth to any home, and what’s more, they also increase the home’s market value and ability to sell. Choosing the color and style of hardwood floors, however, can sometimes be a difficult task. Your new floors must complement every aspect of your home, including the walls, furnishings, cabinetry, architecture, and color scheme. So before you decide on the color and size of hardwood floor for your home, it’s important to do your research.

Samples

The best place to start looking for your hardwood flooring is a local wood flooring showroom. While you are there, keep your options open. Thoroughly look through the samples to decide what will look best in your home. Take a paint chip, cabinet wood sample, or throw pillow along with you to the store. These samples from your home can help you determine which wood colors coordinate best with your design scheme.

Before leaving the wood flooring showroom, take three wood floor samples that interest you. When you return home, lay these samples on the floor to help you determine which one looks best in your home. Be sure to look at your wood floor samples in the daylight and at night and to match the samples to your baseboards and against your walls. Eliminate your least favorite color of the three, and then continue to observe the two remaining samples over the next few days until you decide which one is the winner.

Colors

Keep in mind, it is not necessary for the hardwood flooring color to match any cabinets or wood furniture. Many wood colors complement and enhance each other, so don’t feel obligated to choose the same color wood that you used for your cabinets. If you want the room to feel cozier, choose warm reds, browns, and golden wood tones. If you want the room to feel more spacious, choose cool white and grey wood floors.

Sizes

The size and width of your hardwood flooring is also important to consider. The most common type of hardwood flooring is 2 ¼ inches wide. However, there are other sizes to choose from. Plank flooring, for example, is a wider style of hardwood flooring with boards 3-6 inches wide, and strip flooring wood boards are less than 3 inches wide. Thinner width boards give the illusion of a longer room, while thicker width boards provide a more comfy, cozy feeling to a room.

Cost and Customization

If you are concerned about cost of the hardwood flooring, remember that oak and maple are typically less expensive than hickory, cherry, and walnut wood. Furthermore, Oak wood can be stained in a variety of colors.

In addition to staining, there are many possibilities to customize hardwood flooring. Beveled edge flooring is when sides of each board are sanded or angled to create grooves or an outlining effect around each board, and special milling can be done on the edges of each individual board to create visual effects. Hardwood floor boards can also be installed flush against each other to create a smooth, traditional look.

Suppliers

The possibilities are endless when customizing hardwood flooring. Take time to enjoy the beauty as you add it to your home.

With an expensive background and knowledge of lumber, McIlvain Company has more than two hundred years of experience providing the best quality lumber to all customers. The lumber experts at J. Gibson McIlvain, one of the nation’s oldest and most reputable lumber import and wholesale companies, are fully equipped to help customers determine their hardwood flooring lumber needs. For more information on howMcIlvain helps customers choose the best lumber for any application, visit them online today.

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