091522_SW_Taste The Town_DIGITAL EDITION

4 x September 2022 x Southwest Orlando Home & Real Estate
There’s a lot to like about hardwood
flooring. It brings a bit of nature’s
beauty into your home, and it
goes with just about any decor — be
it traditional, contemporary, rustic
or a stylish mash-up. It requires an
investment of both time and money,
but when the dust settles, wood
floors are almost always worth it.
Whether you are thinking of installing
hardwood in a single room or
your entire home, here are some factors
to consider:
• Your lifestyle. The biggest factor
in deciding whether hardwood
will work for you is your lifestyle.
Do you have children or pets? Are
there high-traffic areas such as a
den where you frequently move furniture
around for gatherings or movie
nights? Are you willing to put up
with dings, dents and imperfections
from a dropped soup can or your
Aussiedoodle’s nails? Or, are you
OK with a floor that reflects you and
your family’s life and history? If so,
then hardwood is worth it.
• Solid wood vs. engineered.
Solid wood is just that — a solid
Is Hardwood
Flooring Right for Your Home?
piece of wood, typically 3/4-inch
thick, that can be sanded and refinished
multiple times. Engineered
wood is a layer — ranging from
paper-thin to 1/4-inch — of highquality
wood over a plywood core.
Depending on the top layer’s thickness,
engineered flooring can be
refinished once or twice at the most.
Engineered flooring is both durable
and flexible. Manufacturers can
also build in features such as water
resistance, which can make this
flooring choice an option in moisture-prone
areas, including kitchens
and bathrooms.
• Appearance. Whether you
choose solid or engineered wood,
perhaps the toughest decision is
which species of wood to use. Some
have finer grains or a uniform texture,
while others may contain knots
or vary in color. Ask yourself what
look you are trying to achieve.
A light oak can create a sleek
Scandinavian feel, while a dark walnut
may suit a more traditional style.
Before you commit to anything,
bring home large sample planks
(don’t rely on a 3-by-3-inch block or
a single plank) of each wood you
like, and move them from room to
room to get a sense of how they will
look. The color in the store may be
different from what you see at home.
Place the samples next to furniture,
baseboards and existing woodwork
to ensure they don’t clash.
• Stability. It may sound obvious,
but hardness matters. The wood flooring
industry uses the Janka scale to
measure the hardness of a particular
type of wood. The test measures the
force needed to push a 0.444-inch
steel ball halfway into the wood.
At 1,290, red oak is the median.
Black cherry, teak and Douglas fir
rank softer; hickory and pecan are
harder. At 2,350, Brazilian cherry is
one of the hardest.
“If heavy use is a concern or you
have a particularly active house with
kids and dogs, you may want to lean
into a harder species such as oak
instead of walnut in your kitchen,”
said Brett Miller, vice president
of technical standards, training and
certification for the National Wood
Flooring Association (NWFA).
• Site-finished or prefinished. Solid
hardwood is available both without
stain and sealer or prefinished.
For unfinished wood, a stain and
finish is applied at your home after
installation. You get to test multiple
shades of stains, and the result is
a consistent color across the entire
area. One tip is to ask your installer
to keep a record of your color/
formula or to leave you a small can
in case you have to replace a damaged
area. Prefinished floors, on the
other hand, are stained and sealed
at the factory.
For either product, you’ll also need
to consider the finish. This ranges
from matte to high gloss. Some
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321-947-2541
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