Top 5 Hardwood Flooring Trends
The classic hardwood floor is experiencing a revolution
. Wood, one of the oldest flooring materials, is being customized and detailed to create fantastic and unique hardwood flooring. With today's wood flooring manufacturers presenting a wide array of styles to choose from, many consumers find themselves attracted to this beautiful and durable material to utilize for everything from reclaimed oak floors to exotic flooring in their homes, offices, etc.
Here is a more in-depth look at today's top five trends in hardwood flooring:
1. Wider Boards
There are certain tricks one can use in order to make a room look a certain way. Using wider boards when installing virgin or reclaimed wood floors makes the room appear larger. Even if the room is tiny, utilizing wide floorboards will help make the room seem a bit larger. Compared to the 2 inch width that used to be applied to floorboards, today's hardwood flooring is more often 3 inches wide. So, when you plan to add reclaimed oak floors into your home, consider wider floorboards to make your home appear larger.
2. Exotic Wood
Hardwood flooring from exotic tree species is in high demand across the country these days. This specific wood material is extremely durable and showcases many rich and deep colors. It can be incorporated into custom flooring designs with bold and unique accents and borders.
The major downside of exotic wood is that it is terrible for the environment. Not only is the material usually taken from already threatened rainforests, but it also creates large carbon footprints due to the large quantities of fossil fuels used to transport the wood.
By choosing to install exotic reclaimed wood floors, consumers can avoid contributing to deforestation as well as enjoy beautiful exotic hardwoods. A great number of manufacturers of reclaimed wood floors procure their material from broken down buildings, railcars, or even shipping containers that are no longer in use.
3. Lighter Tones of Hardwood
While exotic hardwoods are often composed of darker mahogany or cherry tones, lighter hardwood tones are becoming more popular these days as well. In fact, oak flooring makes up half of the entire hardwood flooring market.
For a more environmentally friendly approach, you can install reclaimed oak floors. Reclaimed oak materials can be extracted from dilapidated barns, shipping containers, gymnasiums, and so forth. Reclaimed oak is also much stronger than virgin wood because it was taken from old buildings that had used old-growth heartwood when it was still extremely accessible.
4. Vintage and Weathered Finishes
Hardwood flooring has this great "antique" look to it. The trend of having distressed hardwood flooring that looks old but is actually new is in. There are a couple of ways to wear down flooring material-you can use industrial presses, which create blemishes in the wood making it look less uniform. You can also distress the wood by hand by beating the wood flooring with burlap bags filled with nuts and bolts, or you can even hand-scrape the floor.
For a wood floor with some character and ambiance, think about installing reclaimed wood floors. You can make them even more unique by preserving round edges and other quirks when finishing them.
5. Eco-Friendly Hardwoods.
In this day and age, choosing products that are environmentally friendly is the popular thing to do. Reclaimed wood is definitely becoming a consumer favorite due to its beauty, affordability, and eco-friendly nature. Another sustainable construction material that is becoming more popular is bamboo, as it grows quickly.
All of these trends are great, but when choosing wood flooring for your home, make sure you choose the style and material that best suits you and your budget.
by: Michael Clark
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