Types Of Wood Flooring

Choosing the right type of hardwood flooring for your home is an important step. You need to factor in your lifestyle, decor, and the area where the wood floor is going. Wood flooring is available in a wide variety of colors, styles, and finishes so you need to know exactly what you want for your home before you buy.

There are varying types of wood flooring. You need to decide between factory finished, solid, plank, unfinished, parquet and engineered. Here are some of the differences:

Engineered Flooring:

Engineered floors are made up of multiple layers of wood pressed together. The grains run in different directions on each layer, this makes it extremely stable. Engineered wood flooring is perfect for kitchens, basements, and powder rooms.

Solid Flooring:

Any plank that from top to bottom is the same piece of wood is considered solid flooring. This is the most common type and works in any area of your home that is above ground level.

Plank Flooring:

Plank is wider than other types of strip flooring. It is linear and can be used to create the illusion of more space in a room.

Parquet Flooring:

This is a series of smaller pieces of wood that are laid to form a geometric pattern in your room.

The type and style of flooring you choose will determine the style of your room. You can usually get samples from your local wood flooring retailer to help you decide what type of wood flooring will look best in your home.

Laminate wood flooring is a great option for typical hardwood floors and ceramic tile. One great characteristic about laminate flooring is that it is scratch-resistant and more durable than real wood while providing a similar look to real wood.

Due to the ease of installation, laminate wood flooring can be installed without the use of a contractor. This means that you save a pretty penny on installation fees since you can easily do it yourself.

Laminate wood flooring comes in a variety of different colors and textures, mainly in the range of yellows, reds, and browns.

Laminate wood flooring also comes in a variety of prices. This, of course, depends on many factors such as color and texture. However, if you are looking to buy in bulk you can save money. Builddirect.com, for instance, offers a number of high-end laminate wood floor brands at different prices. Prices can vary in laminate wood flooring. A large portion of laminate flooring can range anywhere from about $0.80 to around $1.60.

Lead time is one factor you do need to consider aside from price when purchasing wood laminate flooring. You could see backorder times ranging anywhere from 1-8 weeks depending on quantity and the style you choose. If you desperately need to re-floor parts of your house for an upcoming event, you may be able to arrange something with the seller.

If time is not a factor for you, you may consider having the shipper ship the laminate flooring with the cheapest (slowest) shipping method. Due to the size and weight of laminate flooring, your shipping prices will not exactly be cheap. In order to save some money on shipping costs, you may find yourself waiting several weeks for delivery. However, you can save up to 50% by scheduling a slower delivery time. Be sure to check with the seller before making any purchase in order to find out what option is right for you.