Exotic hardwood flooring is a popular flooring choice but you may be curious if it’s worth the additional cost. Brazilian hardwood is a beautiful flooring choice but you may be wondering how it holds up and what makes it different than other hardwoods. Brazilian hardwood comes in a variety of species and each has their own individual look and benefits. These exotic woods have beautiful coloring and grain that you cannot find in domestic wood.
Your hardwood floor was a big investment at first – and it is something you want to keep in good shape! As long as you put in the time to take care of your hardwood, your flooring will last well into the years. With more people focusing on how they can do their part to keep the space around them clean in the Atlanta area, different places in homes have been shown to hold the worst dirt. While your hardwood floors probably aren’t the dirtiest thing in your home, they definitely aren’t the cleanest! In order to properly maintain your hardwood flooring, follow the steps we have outlined below for the best practices:
Out of the many options available when it comes to flooring, hardwood and laminate continue to be some of the most popular. Compared to carpet, hardwood and laminate are much easier to clean and don’t tend to hold nasty smells. When looking at both hardwood and laminate side by side, however, one option tends to outshine the other. If you are in the market to put in new flooring in your Atlanta area home, be sure to ask the experts at Ridgeline floors just which one is the right fit for your family.
Hardwood floors are great; they’re durable, attractive, and long-lasting. However, they are going to get damaged over time. Children tracking in dirt, pet claws, moving furniture, and just daily life will wear them down over time. If they become bad enough, you might think you need to refinish them. A refinish involves sanding off the top coat and reapplying it. The floor is likely made of wood with a coat of clear polyurethane. The team that you hire to refinish the floor will sand away the old coat and sand the wood to smooth out all of the scratches. Then, they’ll apply a coat of polyurethane. Here are five things to consider when you make that call.
Read More 3 Things to Consider When Refinishing Hardwood Floors
When looking for a new look for your home a popular option is going with reclaimed wood. People are going with this look for many different reasons. A few of them are: because it looks good, using reclaimed wood is more sustainable, reclaimed wood can be harder, and the uniqueness of the wood.
You can use reclaimed wood for every part of your home. You can use it for furniture, wall covering, ceilings, flooring and even accent art. How do you know if it will be the right look for you? There are many different places that you can go to get a virtual look at what the reclaimed wood would look like in your home.
Hardwood floors look great and last for a very long time with minimal upkeep. However, some homeowners are attempting to maintain their hardwood floors in ways that actually might be damaging the floor. Here are a few common mistakes that you might be making with your hardwood floors.
Read More You Could Be Hurting Your Hardwood Flooring Without Realizing It
Hardwood floors don’t require very much maintenance. With some sweeping or vacuuming, they can look great and perform great for years. However, from time to time, you’ll need to do a little more upkeep. Over time, the floor can start to look dull, cloudy, and dented. Floors look cloudy because of hundreds of tiny scratches. Sliding furniture, pet claws, and hard-soled shoes can scratch the finish. That will eventually make the floor look faded. Floors can look dull if the finish coat on them starts to wear away. Dents arise from heavy furniture, hard shoes, and pet claws as well.
If you have a hardwood floor, you’ve likely seen hardwood flooring wax and considered if you need it. Hardwood wax is not for all kinds of floors, though.
For the past few years, wide plank hardwood flooring has been trending. It’s been popular with many different homeowners and only growing in popularity. However, it’s now being challenged by its polar opposite: skinny plank. Wide plank flooring is typically defined by planks that are over six inches wide. Four to six inches is about the standard plank width. Now, many homeowners are choosing to go with skinny planks. Skinny planks are usually two to four inches wide. Why would they be choosing this width?
For a very long time, hardwood flooring planks were all about the same. They were between three and six inches wide, they were about 12 inches long, and they were finished with a semi-gloss polyurethane. Current trends are changing all of that. If you have been browsing social media or hardwood flooring suppliers, you’ve likely noticed that hardwood flooring planks are trending wider and wider. Most suppliers offer what they called a “wide plank.” The definition of a wide plank differs based on the manufacturer, but typically, anything over six inches is considered wide plank. Ten inches is a pretty common width but 18 inches is not unheard of. The trend has historical roots as well as practical purposes.
Historical Roots
In the second half of the 20th century, most hardwood was sourced from far away. It was transported by ship or by truck and then machined in a factory. That meant that you could pick basically any hardwood from anywhere in the world that you could afford. Before that era, homeowners had to source their hardwood from nearby. Hardwood flooring typically came from no further than a few days on a train. Sometimes, trees within walking distance were felled. That greatly limited the options.
On top of that, the trees had to be felled and milled by hand. Cutting two six-inch wide planks takes about twice as much work as cutting one 12-inch plank. So, crafters would cut the planks about as wide as each individual tree trunk would allow. That reduced the amount of work that had to be done. It also limited the amount of time spent installing them. For those reasons, many old homes have wide hardwood flooring planks.
Practical Reasons
In addition to the historical reasons for wide-plank hardwood flooring, there are practical reasons. Wide hardwood flooring planks will mean that each room has fewer planks. The reduced number of planks reduces the seams in the floor; that means that smaller rooms will look larger. The seams of multiple planks and the changing grain from one plank to the next creates visual noise. That subtly makes a room look more cluttered. A more seamless appearance can reduce that effect.
Wider planks have fewer places where moisture can creep around and under the floor as well. That makes wide planks ideal for bathrooms, entryways, and kitchens. Anywhere that might regularly get wet could be a good candidate for a wide plank floor.
Reclaimed hardwood is very popular right now and has been for at least a decade. This is hardwood that has been used for one purpose and is then repurposed for use as hardwood flooring in a home. It could be hardwood flooring from a different home that is resold or could be something completely different. Whatever the case may be, the implication is typically that the wood has suffered from some weathering. The weathering is usually scratches, oil stains, milling marks, burns, and holes. Wood from barns is the iconic example of reclaimed hardwood. It has been exposed to the elements for years and years. Oftentimes, it was unfinished and exposed to the elements which amplifies the amount of weathering. So, barnwood is wood from barns. It’s also a classification of wood that simply looks like barnwood.
New Barnwood
Barnwood doesn’t actually have to be from a barn anymore. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be reclaimed hardwood. It could be brand new wood that has been crafted to look as if it has been weathered. If you’re looking for this kind of wood, you can choose barnwood that is handcrafted or worked by a machine. That typically means that the wood is scraped and wire-brushed.
Scraping is a technique by which a draw knife is drawn over the wood. A draw knife is a knife with a handle on either side of it. The knife is then pulled over the surface of the wood to scrape away the layer of the surface. This is an older method for smoothing the wood. It smooths the wood but leaves behind a pattern of scrape marks. It was very common when hardwood floors were still processed by hand.
Wire brushing involves running a stiff-bristled metal brush over the wood. This scratches the wood in unique patterns. When done by hand, it creates unpredictable patterns through the wood. When done by machine, the patterns tend to be a little more uniform.
Buying Barnwood
The easiest way to find barnwood is simply to buy it from a hardwood flooring supplier. Homeowners no longer have to go in search of old barns or antique homes undergoing remodeling. Now, barnwood can be bought brand new. Many suppliers offer an option for what they call barnwood. Since there is no standard definition, each manufacturer will produce something slightly different. The basic contours will be the same, though.