Why Chose Wood Flooring for Your Home

Why Choose Wood Flooring for Your Home?

You can select from numerous types of flooring for your home. Luxury vinyl tile, laminate, tile, and stone each have merits.
 
But wood flooring stands out as a timeless, durable, and eco-friendly choice. And let’s face it. Many of the other flooring options mentioned do their best to mimic hardwood, some better than others. But why install an imitation in your home when you can stick with the real deal and choose hardwood?

Please don’t take our word for it, though. Let’s explore why wood flooring is an excellent addition and investment for your home. 
 

Wood Floors Offer Timeless Appeal

Wood has been in style for centuries. From America’s pioneer days to modern times, wood floors have maintained their popularity. Unlike carpet, linoleum, and tile, wood floors never go out of style. How many homeowners remove their carpeting to expose and rejuvenate the beautiful wood floors?

Each plank of wood flooring tells a story. A single plank can offer different graining, color tones, textures, lengths, and widths to complement any decor.

Wood flooring can adapt to changing styles and trends, making it a versatile choice for any home.


  

Each Wood Species Offers a Unique Aesthetic

With wood flooring, you can select from numerous wood species, each with its appeal. There’s white oak, red oak, hickory, maple, and cherry. Exotic options like teak, mahogany, and Brazilian cherry offer unique grain patterns and colors.

For example, oak flooring features a tight grain that’s incredibly versatile. Oak flooring is as comfortable in a contemporary home as in an old farmhouse. That’s likely why it is the most popular flooring species in the U.S.

On the other hand, hickory flooring has a distinct look like no other. With wide planks, it has an even more distinctive personality that is ideal in rustic homes. Compare that with maple’s muted grain, which works flawlessly in contemporary homes.

Hardwoods can adapt to any design theme, whether you prefer a smooth, modern look or a rustic, distressed finish.  

Longevity and Durability

Solid hardwood floors are incredibly durable. Historic homes from the 1700s and 1800s testify to their resilience, often featuring original wood flooring.

Hardwood floors gracefully handle everyday wear and tear, with scratches and minor blemishes adding to their character. Today’s prefinished hardwood floors offer enhanced durability with finishes that protect against scratches and dents.

Equally important, you can sand and refinish wood floors to extend their life. Solid wood flooring allows you to go through this process multiple times, often up to five. So, when someone tells you wood floors can last you a lifetime, they aren’t kidding. You can easily extend the lifetime of your hardwood to 100 years or more.

Vinyl flooring, luxury vinyl plank, or laminate flooring can’t offer that kind of longevity. They require total replacement after years of wear and tear. Most manufacturers provide shorter warranties on manufactured floors for that reason, ranging from 10 to 35 years. 

Hardwood is Sustainable and Eco-Friendly

Wood flooring is a sustainable and eco-friendly choice. Scientists estimate that our forest land contains 230 billion trees, with more planted yearly. For example, the forestry community planted 2.3 billion seedlings last year.

Most importantly, the net annual growth in forest land exceeds harvesting by 31% annually. Harvesting and replanting trees helps retain forests and tree populations for future generations. Reclaimed hardwood from older structures also promotes sustainability.

Another element of wood flooring’s sustainability is that it’s reusable, a critical component of the entire sustainability equation. Consumers view reclaimed wood as trendy. Even more beneficial is that reclaimed wood doesn’t require harvesting new trees.

Equally important, wood flooring is biodegradable. At the end of its lifecycle, you can recycle, upcycle, or use it as fuel.

Compare that to carpeting, where nearly 90 percent ends up in landfills. Even luxury vinyl and laminate tile contribute to millions of pounds of waste yearly.

Wood Flooring is Easy to Maintain

Some folks might tell you hardwood floors require a great deal of upkeep. The reality is that maintenance and care are straightforward. You can sweep or vacuum them to remove the dirt and debris from the surface layer.

You can use a cleaner like Bruce Hardwood Floor Cleaner for more thorough cleaning. About the only thing you have to worry about is excessive moisture. You must quickly wipe up spills to ensure they don’t penetrate your solid wood floors.

You should also follow a weekly or bi-monthly regimen of vacuuming, dry-mopping, and keeping your hardwoods dry. This will ensure that your surface finish lasts for decades. 

Wood Flooring Offers Better Hygiene

Typically, your home is full of allergens living anywhere, including bedding, pillows, sofas, and flooring. Soft surfaces, like carpets, are often the culprit, as they capture and retain the allergens. For that matter, allergens can even exist in your pets and create symptoms.

Solid wood floors don’t trap dust, animal dander, parasites, spores, or odors like carpets. That makes them a better choice for family health, especially allergy sufferers.

Hardwoods Add Value to Your Home

According to the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA), 52 percent of homeowners have wood flooring. Another two-thirds of homeowners said they would choose hardwood floors in wood flooring in their dream homes.

In that same survey by NWFA, homeowners cited three critical factors when selecting flooring:

1. Durability (67%)
2. Attractiveness (61%)
3. Easy to Clean (58%)

When considering those factors, hardwood flooring ranks either first or second. The other flooring types tested in the survey were carpet, tile, laminate, and vinyl.

Its popularity translates to increasing the value of your home. According to Money, hardwood floors add 3 to 5% value to your home. The average return on investment (ROI) for installing hardwood floors is 70% to 80% (realtor.com).

Why Would You Choose Anything Else?

It’s little wonder that wood flooring remains popular for homeowners when you add it. Even when homeowners select an alternative like luxury vinyl, it mimics the appearance of natural hardwood. So, why settle for anything other than authentic wood floors?

They’ll reward you with unparalleled longevity, timeless appeal, and incredible beauty. Plus, you’ll enjoy eco-friendly flooring that adds value to your home.

Wood flooring helped build America. And it’s still the foundation for the majority of homeowners today.