Hardwood Flooring

About

What Is Hardwood Flooring? Hardwood flooring is a floor made from real wood, milled into planks and finished to take foot traffic. It comes in two constructions. Solid hardwood is cut as a single piece of wood. Engineered hardwood is multi-ply: a real hardwood veneer bonded over a cross-grain plywood core. We carry engineered hardwood flooring in oak. The surface you walk on is genuine wood, not a printed film, and the wear layer is thick enough to sand and refinish more than once. Solid vs Engineered Hardwood Flooring Both are real wood. The difference is what sits under the surface, and it changes where each one can go. Solid hardwood is one piece of wood all the way through. It can be refinished many times over a long life, but it expands and contracts with humidity, so it wants a wood subfloor above grade and a stable room. Engineered hardwood has a real wood wear layer over a cross-grain core. Those crossed layers pull against each other as humidity changes, which means far less seasonal movement than a solid plank. That stability is why engineered hardwood handles wider planks and less forgiving subfloors. What engineered hardwood is not is laminate or vinyl. Laminate and luxury vinyl use a printed image of wood under a wear coat. Engineered hardwood has actual oak on top, which is why it can be refinished and they cannot. If you want a wood look with full water resistance, wood look tile and wood-look vinyl flooring are the alternatives to compare. Oak Hardwood Flooring Oak is the most widely specified species in hardwood flooring, and it is the species we stock: European white oak, European oak, and French oak. White oak reads warm and neutral. It has a tighter grain than red oak and none of the pink undertone, which makes it easier to pair with cool greys, warm creams, and black or brass hardware. Our tones run light and coastal rather than dark: pale sand, soft greige, warm honey, and light grey-brown, all in a natural finish that leaves the grain visible