We are getting serious over here about wood floors. With our home renovations nearly under way and just beginning to sort a cottage refresh (I swear – our carpeted cottage floors have typhoid), I am reaching back into my design school archives to remind myself of all of the virtues of hardwood and when engineered is a better alternative.
Hardwood
I love the look of hardwood but aesthetics aside, its benefits are many. Everything from sound absorption and improvements in air quality (it doesn’t catch dust the way carpet does) to versatility and strength, it is really the only way to go for flooring. But not all hardwoods are created equal.
Hardwood is a catch all as not all woods are actually hard. I know. And hardness does not equal strength – in fact, quite the opposite. The hardest of woods are super dense and therefore, can actually be brittle. So what you really want is a mid-range hardwood for just the right amount of flex and give without a compromise on durabilty.
Oak is your best bet for flooring. Its middle of the road hardness and rock star endurance (good luck scratching or denting oak) as well as the breadth of offering (white, red, black, quarter-sawn for less graining, distressed, wire-brushed and a partridge in a pear tree) make it an easy choice. It also takes stain well so you can achieve a look that will pair with any interior. It can be clean and modern, rustic and worn, elegant and sophisticated depending on the width of the board and finish. Love.
Hemlock has a lot of buzz at the moment and it is gorgeous – just know what you are getting. It is soft and will easily scratch under the pressure of dragged chairs or the nails of a running dog. The look is distressed and excellent for that cottage interior that tends to be more forgiving.
Engineered Hardwood
It is a rare occasional that science and nature make such lovely music together. It offers all of the benefits of traditional hardwood except it comes with a bag of chips. Stability.
Engineered hardwood IS hardwood but only the very top veneer or layer is the wood of your choice. Depending on quality, your veneer will range between three and eight millimetres. The core of the product will be another, less expensive wood – and again, there is a range affected by how that core is produced. With the grain is cheaper, layers of plywood pressed together is cheaper still and less stable, and against will drive your price up but offer greater stability. And by stability, I mean how much ‘movement’ you will see in the floor. Cooler temps and lower humidity in Canadian winters can warp a hardwood floor. In contrast, the summer can see your floors swell. You will not see the movement in an engineered floor as you would a traditional hardwood floor. Period.
And it still offers that flexibility to refinish albeit not indefinitely. The veneer, depending on thickness, can be sanded and refinished anywhere from three to ten times so in the event of dents, scratches, damage or just wanting a new look in a space, the option is there.
It also works over radiant floors – a no-no with traditional hardwood. And offers the simplicity of install: where hardwood requires layers of plywood between it and the sub-floor, engineered can glue straight on the sub-floor which should lower the cost of installation although you are paying more for the material. It ends up being net/net quite frankly!