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Best Hardwood Floors

In that location'southward a reason solid hardwood flooring has stood the examination of fourth dimension and continues to be a favorite floor option despite the ever-changing demands of interior décor trends: hardwood is durable, widely available, budget-friendly and – with the right terminate – can be hands adjusted to conform any style.

So, if you're considering hardwood floors, you're already making a skilful option for your dwelling. Only how practice yous cull the all-time solid wood floors?

Well, this is a multi-faceted question. In this article we'll address this question by reviewing the following aspects that determine which is the best solid hardwood for your abode:

We cover a lot of information in this report. If y'all want to skip to our solid hardwood brand reviews and so click here.

Solid Hardwood Vs Engineered Hardwood

– consider the best type of hardwood flooring depending on where you are using it

First let'due south make the distinction betwixt solid hardwood and engineered hardwood. Solid hardwood is exactly what it says it is, a solid plank of wood, whilst engineered hardwood is a composite product consisting of an upper layer of hardwood that is adhered onto layers of plywood.

The difference in construction is key to understanding whether a solid or engineered floor is the best choice for your project.

engineered hardwood is the better option for boiling areas such as bathrooms, kitchens and basements as the structure has less risk of warping
solid hardwood is the preferred option in areas of high traffic (such equally hallways) equally information technology can be sanded dorsum any number of times in its lifetime and re-finished to wait dandy once more.

If you've established that solid hardwood is the correct selection for your project, yous now need to await in more detail at solid hardwoods species and other considerations.

Past the mode, if you now know that engineered hardwood is what you want/need so now would be the right time to bank check out our guide to the all-time engineered wood floors, including brand reviews.

Different Types of Solid Hardwood

– select the best species of solid hardwood for your dwelling house in terms of hardness, porosity, provenance, base color and grain

There are basically two chief categories of solid hardwood species on the market in the USA:

domestic species that are grown locally such equally reddish oak, maple, hickory, ash, beech, American cherry, walnut, birch and pine.
exotic species that are imported into the USA from all over the world, these include Brazilian cerise (aka Jatoba), acacia, mahogany, tigerwood, Brazilian teak, rosewood, ipe (aka Brazilian walnut)and kempas.

Oak continues to be the most popular hardwood flooring selection so please take a wait at our oak flooring post and also our post on the differences between ruby-red and white oak flooring.

Dissimilar species of hardwood accept different properties – not to the lowest degree of all different base of operations colors and grains. Other backdrop of hardwood species to consider are:

the hardness of the forest– for example ruby-red oak, which is the well-nigh pop option in the US is besides very hard and resists dents very well; whilst pine tends to be very soft and unforgiving over fourth dimension nether heavy traffic, which might not be and so bad for you lot if you lot similar the lived-in, distressed look. Find out nigh the Janka rating of the hardwood yous're interested in – a Janka rating of less than 1290 indicates a softer wood.
porosity – another major consideration, peculiarly if y'all plan to stain the forest, is to check how porous the species is. For example, maple is extremely non-porous and and so it does not have stain very well making it very tricky to achieve an evenly stained effect.

As you can imagine, dissimilar species of hardwood take different toll points – domestic species tend to exist slightly cheaper than exotic species.

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Differences in Hardwood Grading

– decide the best wood flooring depending on how its grading affects its advent and your budget

Not all solid hardwood retailers detail this, but in fact hardwood floor planks are oft categorized by a grading organization that qualifies its appearance. To be clear the grading arrangement does not reverberate the durability or hardness of the woods. Here are the grades and what they hateful:

Select – this course is for planks that take a uniform grain and color, with few imperfections such as knots. Select grade planks are more expensive than other grades equally more endeavor has been put into ensuring each plank looks like.
#1 Common – this is for planks that are not quite equally uniform as the select grade; here you lot'll see flooring with knots, greater variation in grain and perhaps different length planks too. #one Common grade is cheaper than select course.
#2 Common – these planks have bigger knots, more than visible grain and striking contrasts in color. Much cheaper than select course, #2 Mutual grade planks will give a more than rustic experience to your abode.
Tavern Grade – this type of hardwood plank is not commonly used for flooring, equally they tend to be very knotty and have burn marks and badly sawn edges. Tavern grade, however, is by far the cheapest grade of hardwood flooring.

Solid Hardwood Finishes

– decide on the best hardwood floors in terms of its finish and how that works with your upkeep

Some other consideration that is specific to solid hardwood flooring is whether or not to get a pre-finished plank or completely unfinished, raw forest that is then finished on site, giving a unique and customized finish.

The main options for the surface finish on your hardwood are:

aluminum oxide – the standard stop for pre-finished and pre-stained solid hardwood planks, and which offers a very proficient layer of protection to your flooring.
water based or oil based polyurethane – basically a clear varnish sealant that volition enhance the color of your hardwood flooring and give decent protection confronting wear and tear. Depending on the blazon of polyurethane end will likewise result in either a more gloss or satin look.
wax – ordinarily only available for on site finishing, wax finishes will aid minimize scratches and stains, just aren't as protective equally polyurethane.

Purists volition always debate that the best results will be going with the raw wood finished on site by an experienced installer; but that may not be the about budget-friendly option.

As with all things to do with dwelling improvement, you become what you pay for, so always endeavour to go to the maximum for your upkeep. If y'all're going with a pre-finished hardwood, then hash out the options with your installer and consider going with a brand that the installer recommends and has worked with earlier.

Colors, stains, gloss or matt?

– choosing the best solid hardwood in terms of color, stain or gloss volition depend on your personal preferences and lifestyle

We accept already discussed the unlike species of hardwood and the fact that they all take a unique base colour, but it is important to empathize that the base color tin can exist affected and changed with stain.

The color of the stain will completely change the character of your hardwood flooring, and then if you are staining hardwood on site it's worth doing several sample areas and looking it those samples at different times of day in unlike lighting conditions before you decide.

Pre-finished solid hardwood flooring has already been stained, and you lot will therefore be able to see immediately which color y'all're getting – but still it'southward worth asking your retailer for sample selections to take home and test before deciding.

The jury is out every bit to whether a darker or lighter stain shows up dirt more than, and some argue that highly gloss finishes prove upwards more smudges than more matt finishes.

Plank Dimensions (thickness, width and length)

– the best solid hardwood flooring in terms of plank dimensions is mainly a question of personal preference, but always ensure your planks are a decent thickness

To a sure extent, deciding on which width and length of solid hardwood plank to become for will be in office upward to personal preference, simply also what is bachelor.

The current trend is for wider planks; longer planks will take fewer joins giving a more unified appearance. Thinner planks tend to requite a more traditional look, whilst super short planks can exist used to great a herringbone or chevron parquet blueprint which is very much on-tendency correct now!

The most important dimension that you lot MUST be certain of, is that your solid hardwood planks are no less than 3/iv inch thick! This is the standard thickness of near hardwood flooring and has been tested for force and stability.

Plus, planks that are at least 3/4" thick can be sanded dorsum and refinished betwixt 5-7 times.

Pricing

– understand the costing factors that volition touch what is the best solid hardwood floor for your project

As discussed above the factors that will touch the basic cost of solid hardwood floor are:

whether or not you're opting for a domestic or an exotic species, with prices ranging anywhere from $3 to $12 per square pes
the grading of the planks
whether or not you are installing pre-finished planks or having them stained and finished on site (on site finishing tin add together upward to $5 per square pes)
overall width and length will besides determine how much wood you'll need, which in plow affects costs

And, of course, yous'll too need to calculate the installation costs which will vary co-ordinate to the requirements of the job, for example if yous want your contractors to prepare the subfloor or provide extra services like calculation transitions betwixt different types of flooring.

For more than information about hardwood prices, cleaning and maintenance and installation, check out our other solid hardwood flooring guides.

Solid Hardwood Flooring Reviews

Below are our reviews of the best solid hardwood flooring brands.

Doma Floor

Role of the impressive Proximity Mills family unit of flooring brands, Doma is all about style: "where fashion meets flooring". To this terminate, they offering a range of different flooring options, including ii very carefully curated solid hardwood flooring collections.

While Doma doesn't take a huge range of solid hardwood (past the way, they also offering swell engineered hardwood floor), what they do have is certainly worth considering because their collections offer very bonny, and occasionally unique, style options.

Doma's Sophisticated Timbers collection is the larger of the two in solid hardwood and features either hickory or oak planks in 19 different color and style options. As you would await from whatsoever serious hardwood flooring brand, there are options in every shade, including lightly whitewashed, natural tones, warm caramels and dark chocolates.

But ane of the more unusual options is the Country Natural mode. This combines unlike toned hickory planks, ranging from a very low-cal natural cream to a deeper warm brown, virtually terracotta tone. The result on a total floor, when laid carefully to ensure an even spread of the different toned planks, is a gorgeous rustic look that would complement a farmhouse chic décor.

Meanwhile, the Homestead Roots collection capitalizes further on the rustic chic vibe with hickory planks in 4 dissimilar colour options, from a warm pinkish chocolate-brown to a greyness toned one. Here the emphasis is on rugged details, with a lightly weathered, browbeaten downward aesthetic that will brand your floors look equally if they've been in that location for centuries: this flooring would look dandy equally a properties to the industrial loft look that is even so trending.

Outside of their way frontward looks, the solid hardwood floors at Doma are besides all sourced from sustainable forests, take a limited lifetime residential warranty, and have the industry gold-standard finish of a urethane plus aluminum oxide superlative coat.

What we also similar a lot nigh Doma is that their floor products are sold exclusively through independent flooring retailers, and Doma makes sure that those retailers have in-depth noesis of their floors to offer the best customer service.

Detect out more about Doma and where to notice their flooring hither.

Armstrong and Bruce

Every bit you lot may already know, Armstrong Flooring is a global leader in the manufacture of all kinds of flooring, with over 30 factories worldwide and a history dating back to 1860 that rightfully makes it one of the most respected floor brands in the country.

Over the years Armstrong has incorporated several other floor brands, including Bruce in 1998. It'southward worth making the distinction if you're researching online that whilst at that place is a divide website for Bruce, on the current Armstrong Flooring website products from both the Bruce and the Armstrong brands are featured together.

The major advantage with Armstrong Flooring is that it has a huge corporeality of choice. Together the Bruce and Armstrong brands offer 446 solid hardwood products, predominantly in red or white oak but as well ash, hickory and maple.

The products are divided into several dissimilar collections, though y'all should exist aware that some collections have both solid hardwood and engineered hardwood options, for example the American Scrape collection (pictured below left) which features some lovely vintage hand-scraped textures comes in solid maple, oak and hickory as well every bit engineered hickory, walnut and cherry.

Another advantage is that with such a large product base, in that location'due south a decent amount of interesting options such as the solid oak parquet from the Millwork Square collection (pictured higher up correct) and a certain amount of end choices including loftier, mid or low gloss finishes.

On the down side Armstrong and Bruce don't offer extra broad planks in their solid hardwood drove with the largest width being just 5"; though they do have quite a large offering of thinner flooring strips that are less than 3" wide.

Armstrong and Bruce do non retail direct, but both brands are widely available from trusted flooring retailers and both the Armstrong and the Bruce websites have a great store finding map where y'all tin put in your postal lawmaking and discover your nearest retailer.

It does pay to shop around though every bit we have seen wide variations in prices of Armstrong and Bruce solid hardwood flooring depending on where you lot shop.

Mirage

Mirage is a relative newcomer in the hardwood flooring world with a rather impressive story. The Mirage brand is owned by parent company Boa-Franc, a Canada-based flooring company, and was first established in tardily 1983, just for a major burn to completely destroy their facilities in early on 1984! The company says that this crushing blow is what provided "the spark that gave ascent to the visitor'due south philosophy of "Spirit" – the passion and dedication that drives [the] entire squad" and the decision to rebuild from scratch.

By 1992 the visitor had introduced its products to the United states marketplace and today Mirage is the proud holder of 30 industry awards for its excellence in quality and value, and is stocked with over 2300 retailers/ dealers beyond North America.

Mirage besides takes peachy pride in offer a sustainable development program that works to ensure intendance for the environment and the local economy.

Mirage offer 3 types of hardwood flooring: engineered, a laminate-similar composite of hardwood plus loftier-density lath, and archetype solid hardwood.

Their solid hardwood planks come up in assorted lengths and widths range from 2.25" to iv.25", have micro-V joint on all four sides of the plank and are pre-finished gratis from VOCs and formaldehyde.

Mirage's solid hardwood planks are currently available in six of their collections: Admiration, Alive, Flair, Imagine, Natural and Sweet Memories.

Each collection features different wood species, offering a large range in finishes and aesthetics, including:

the extensive range of smooth finished planks in the Admiration Collection (with currently 85 colorways – and so something for every possible taste!);
the barely-at that place finish of the Natural Collection which really brings out the inherent dazzler of the grain (we beloved the rich tones of the Knotty Walnut from this collection, pictured to a higher place left);
and the super-cool ultra matte finish of the Flair Drove which features a number of on-trend grey stained planks (like the White Oak Grey Drizzle Low-cal pictured higher up right).

But aside from the large range of finishes, what nosotros like all-time about Delusion is that in the vi collections named above, you can get many (though non all) of the planks in both solid or engineered hardwood – which means that yous can match the same look throughout your dwelling, from humid or below grade rooms like the bathroom and the basement, to loftier traffic spaces like the hallway or kids bedroom!

For the kind of quality you go from Mirage, you lot should expect high prices, but in fact their products retail quite competitively from around $6.00 to $10.00 per square foot.

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Lauzon

Lauzon is another Canadian brand that has made not bad inroads into the North American market place over the by thirty years, and which has a reputation of offering excellent quality pre-finished solid and engineered hardwood flooring.

For many, one of its main attractions is that fact that they offering a fully integrated operation, "from forest to floor" – owning and managing a their own forests in Quebec – which ensures sustainable woods management and stewardship for many of their domestic hardwoods.

Lauzon also source exotic woods from outside of Canada, for which they have signed upwardly to the Rainforest Alliance certification programme.

A further point of involvement about Lauzon is that some of their products – including a number of their solid planks – have their Pure Genius engineering science built in: this award-wining technology actually helps clean the air in your habitation by using the natural low-cal that comes into your dwelling house to activate an air-purifying agent titanium dioxide that is integrated into the finish! Amazing!

Lauzon currently offering iii main collections – Ambiance, Designer and Essential – which and then divide into several serial. As with Mirage flooring, many of the options in the three collections are available both as solid or engineered planks, assuasive you lot to achieve a uniform await throughout your dwelling house according to room specifications.

Naturally, each drove has its own artful, providing a good deal of choice to suit most tastes.

The Ambiance collection features Lauzon'due south premium North American hardwoods and has some rather lovely dark stained woods;
the sleek and stylish Designer collection features 16 solid hardwood options, including the rather superb smoky, brown Palomino Betula (pictured above left);
and the Essential collection features domestic species and keeps the stop simple to highlight the natural beauty of the wood, like the lovely, multi-toned grain of the Natural Difficult Maple (pictured higher up right).

Lauzon solid hardwood flooring retails from around $five.l upwards to $9.00 per foursquare foot; visit the Lauzon website to find out where your nearest retailer is.

Somerset Hardwood Floor

If you've settled on oak and want to ensure you lot go along this (relatively) local, then Somerset Hardwood Flooring is certainly worth your consideration; the company, based in Kentucky, has spent over 20 years honing their skills and creating an integrated procedure to take advantage of all the wonderful Appalachian hardwood that is practically right at that place in their backyard!

Specializing primarily in oak flooring, merely as well offering some carefully selected hickory, walnut and maple options, Somerset is the perfect choice if y'all want to support your local economy and invest in a solid hardwood floor that is made to last.

For most of their pre-finished solid hardwood planks Somerset offer an impressive 50-year warranty on finish and wear, and a lifetime structural warranty!

Somerset also make engineered hardwood flooring, and many of their collections offer both solid and engineered options so that you can have the same blazon of wood throughout your home.

There are currently seven collections that have solid hardwood planks. Most of these collections are solely Appalachian oak with a pocket-size but perfectly chosen range of stains that will suit virtually projects; and each collection features a different finish or style detail. For case the HomeStyle collection has eased edges on all four sides of the planks, whilst the High Gloss collection features a super shiny aluminum oxide cease.

If you lot're interested in other wood species then, as well as oak, the Character collection has walnut, maple and hickory options, all of which are finished to highlight the natural knots, markings and variations in grain and color.

Some other option is the Specialty drove that features just thee maple and iv hickory planks with different stains, including a rather lovely toffee colored one (Maple Tumbleweed, pictured above correct).

I last matter to deport in mind with Somerset is that all of the collections have solid planks in widths of 2.25" or 3.25", simply simply a few of them have planks as wide every bit 4" or 4". So if you're looking specifically for an extra wide solid plank and then Somerset is non for you (they do accept extra broad engineered planks though).

Somerset solid hardwood floor retails at effectually $four.00 – $7.00 per foursquare foot, and is available to purchase from a wide number of retailers, including Wayfair.

Other Superlative Brands to Consider

Mohawk Hardwood

Mullican Hardwood

Shaw Hardwood

Kentwood

Mercier

To find out about the toll of installing your new hardwood floor click hither or to get a free quote from a local pro in your expanse click here.

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Source: https://www.homeflooringpros.com/best-hardwood-floors/