Maple wood flooring is one of the premium kinds of hardwood flooring available. Maple imparts a wonderful warmth to any room and is extremely durable. Like any quality wood flooring, this wood will increase not just the beauty, but also the value of your home. Maple wood flooring has a naturally light hue that blends into and complements all kinds of decorating styles and architectural designs. From a rustic cabin to an elegant and modern traditional style home, this is a flooring choice worth consideration.

Maple Wood Flooring is Green

Northern hard maple is an excellent choice if you are looking for a flooring material that is renewable. As a living tree, this wood is managed and maintained to continue to provide consumers with the material. Maple wood flooring is recyclable in that the boards can be re-used. And, of course, as with all wood flooring products, maple wood is biodegradable.

Maple Wood Flooring means Quality

This magnificent hardwood comes from forest above the 35th parallel. This climate zone’s brief growing season and hard winters makes for wood with very dense graining with a gloriously deep golden color. There are very few flaws in the planking. As with other hardwood varieties, maple wood flooring comes in grades. The highest, or first grade will be selected with the least natural variations while second grade has more variations and third even more. All grades will have the same quality of strength and hardness, however.

Installation of Maple Wood Flooring

The standard advice on all hardwood flooring installation holds true for maple as well. Materials should be held for around 72 hours in the room where it will be installed. The temperature and moisture in the air of the room should be stablized at around 75 degrees and there should be no more than 50% moisture present. For this reason, your heating and air-condtioning systems should be fully functional before your floors are installed.

After your floor is installed, it will take up to two years for the floor to completely adapt to the conditions of your home. Remember, as a living material, wood will continue to react to environmental changes. Dry conditions will cause the wood to shrink and high humidity will cause the boards to swell.

During winter months when your heat is on and the house is dry, you may notice some small separations between the hardwood planks. When the floor is once again exposed to moister air in the warm months these small cracks from shrinkage will disappear.

Maple wood flooring doesn’t require any particularly difficult care. Simple gentle cleaning is really all that your floor will require for many, many years. See our articles on for advice on how to maintain your maple wood floor in prime condition.

Maple wood flooring is an enduring feature of your home that adds great value not only in dollar terms, but in quality of life terms. Your maple floor will last for generations with proper care and can easily be brought back to new condition whenever heavy wear occurs. Among all types of hardwood flooring, maple wood flooring is a star.

So, you’ve made the decision to install oak floors in your home. You still have to choose among the types of oak flooring available. There are a number of choices still left to consider, each of which has practical and aesthetic considerations. As with all home construction and/or decorating decisions, your choices are going to be unique to you. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to hardwood flooring. Oak floors come in several types and styles, as do all types of hardwood floors.

Three Types of Oak Flooring and Their Characteristics

1. Solid – As the name implies, this product is made of solid wood. The thickness of the planking can range from a quarter inch to one inch. As the thickness increases, the price goes up. Thicker products are going to be more durable, allow for more refinish jobs and feel more ‘solid under your feet. There is a wide variety of wood species used to make this type of hardwood floor with types of oak flooring being among the the most popular. Solid oak flooring can literally last for generations in your home. In general, solid hardwood flooring will make the most lasting contribution to the value of your home.

2. Engineered – These products are constructed in layers. The way the planks are constructed, the grain of the wood is laid in opposing directions and this makes the floor more stable. Most engineered floor products are between three and twelve layers with the more expensive products having more layers. The advantage to engineered wood floors is due to their greater moisture resistance they can be installed in places not suited to solid wood flooring, like basements or in climates with high levels of humidity. These floors have nearly the same variety of species to choose from as solid hardwood floors. The top layer of the floor is the one that imparts the ‘look’ to the floor so you could choose oak veneer if you are looking for oak flooring and get essentially the same result. There are many types of oak flooring available as engineered products. High quality engineered floors can be refinished up to five times, however the cheaper brands may have as little as .6mm of veneer and can only be recoated once they become worn. Engineered oak flooring is popular because it can give a very pleasing appearance for a more budget friendly price than solid oak flooring.

3. Acrylic Impregnated – This type of wood floor is very hard and stands up to a lot of wear and tear. The wood grain is injected with acrylic resins. This type of floor can be obtained in most of the hardwoods as the other floors and it is ideal for very high traffic areas, even commercial installations in restaurants and stores. It also makes a very durable choice for homeowners. It is one of the types of oak flooring that can handle nearly any situation.

The way you assess each of these various types of hardwood flooring is to first consider where the flooring is to be installed. Solid hardwood flooring is not appropriate for some installations. In places where high moisture is going to be an issue you should consider other choices. Budget considerations will also come into play. Remember that you can get the same look as solid oak flooring at a more attractive price if you choose engineered oak flooring. So you can see that there are many types of oak flooring that fit your unique circumstances.

There are a number of very good reasons to consider laminate wood flooringAlthough nothing beats the appearance of natural wood flooring, there are some drawbacks. Wood floors are expensive. Depending on the size of your home, it could cost $20,000 or more to upgrade to wood flooring. And even the hardest wood scratches. If you have big dogs, lots of children, or heavy traffic, you may be surprised how quickly wood flooring shows some wear and tear.

Nowadays, there’s a huge selection of laminate wood flooring to choose from. Virtually every color, finish, and wood grain is available. You can even buy wide planks, if that’s the look you want. In addition to wood, laminates also duplicate tile, slate, and stone flooring.
Laminate wood flooring looks like wood flooring, but it’s less expensive, more durable, easier to install, and better suited to high-traffic areas.

In situations where you have a high traffic and heavy use, laminate floors may offer you a better choice for your money. If you choose carefully, you will probably see little difference between this kind of floor and a solid hardwood floor.

Laying laminate wood flooring

How Laminate Wood Flooring is Made

Laminate wood flooring consists of a top layer made of melamine resin, which is extremely durable. This is the material that goes into those nearly indestructible plastic dishes cafeterias use. It resists scratches, stains, fading, and water damage better than natural wood. The core can be anywhere from 6mm to 12mm thick. The thicker the core, the better the floor. Look for one that’s been treated to make it water repellant. And make sure the joints have a coating of wax to keep moisture from ever reaching the core.

Laminate wood flooring resists moisture

Two kinds of laminate wood flooring are available – High Pressure Laminates (HPL) and Direct Pressure Laminates (DPL). Because HPL takes two steps to glue and fuse the layers together, it costs more to produce than DPL, which is manufactured in a single step. As a rule, HPL costs more, wears better, and lasts longer than DPL.

HPL also has greater moisture protection in the tongue-and-groove system that joins the boards together. This will help prevent the seams from swelling when humidity is high.

Installing Laminate Wood Flooring

Laminate wood flooring is designed to be floated over an existing floor, which means that you can use it over almost anything – vinyl, concrete, or plywood. Because it’s not glued down or nailed to the subfloor, it’s easy to install. In fact, most do it yourselfers can achieve good results on their own. You just need to make sure that the floor you’re going on top of is level and smooth.

A thin padding is laid over the existing floor and then the laminate boards lock together with a tongue and groove system. Molding in a matching finish is easy to cut and install.

Once they’re installed, these floors are very easy to take care of. They never need to be waxed or polished and a dust mop is usually all that’s needed to clean laminate wood flooring.

Read more about engineered wood flooring here.

Laying laminate wood flooring Image Flickr: Hendricks Photos

Laminate wood flooring resists moisture Image Flickr: John Loo

American cherry is sought after for its warm, rich color, which ranges from pinkish brown to deep red. As a fruit tree, it’s a member of the rose family, and it grows all over the United States and Canada. In colonial America, cherry was used for fine furniture, inlays, and paneling. Today, it’s a very popular choice for kitchen cabinets, and Shaker-style furniture.

One of the best things about American cherry is the way the color deepens with age. Over the years, it develops a gorgeous patina that polishes beautifully. It has a fine, straight grain.

With a hardness of 950 on the Janka hardness scale, American cherry is softer than many of the most popular woods used for flooring. Red oak, for example, has a hardness of 1290. Consequently, it’s a poor choice for high-traffic areas, commercial settings, or homes with dogs. It’s often used as an accent wood around the edges of a floor where there’s less wear and tear.

It’s also more expensive than other wood flooring options, so before you buy American cherry, make sure it’s an appropriate choice for your room.

Due to its reddish color, Jatoba is often called Brazilian cherry. It grows mostly in Brazil, Chile, the West Indies, and parts of Mexico. The principle difference between Jatoba and American cherry is the hardness. Jatoba measures 2350 on the Janka scale — more than 80% harder than red oak.

This makes Jatoba a better choice for wood flooring in rooms that will receive an average amount of traffic. Like American cherry, it will darken over time, especially if it’s exposed to direct sunlight. The finish that’s used will also affect this process.

Because of it extraordinary hardness, Jatoba is difficult to work with, so it’s a poor choice for do-it-yourselfers. Unless you’re a seasoned woodworker, you’ll likely get better results if you hire a professional to install jatoba wood flooring.

If you can afford it and plan to use it in a room that receives little traffic, real cherry wood will produce a look that’s unsurpassed in its elegance and sophistication. If you want the appearance of cherry with greater durability and affordability, choose jatoba.

Read about walnut wood flooring here.

Rated 1010 on the Janka hardness scale, walnut isn’t as hard as oak, but it has something else going for it. It’s color. Why should that matter? These days, you can apply a walnut finish to almost any wood and end up with something that is about the same color. So what’s the big deal about walnut’s deep, chocolate brown hue.

There are two things. First of all, because the color of walnut is natural and not applied, each of the planks in your walnut floor will be subtly different. This will give your walnut floors a depth and richness you wouldn’t have with another species that was finished to look like walnut. It’s like the difference between dyed hair and natural hair.

Black Walnut

The other advantage to walnut flooring is that because the color is natural, it goes all the way through. So scratches, dents, and other mars hardly show. When finished with a satin finish, walnut floors continue to look good after years or normal wear and tear. If your floors are damaged, you probably won’t need to refinish them because what’s under the surface looks the same as the surface.

Walnut has quite a bit of color variation. The sapwood is a grayish white, while the heartwood is a warm, rich brown. Some older growth even appears purple streaks that are almost black. You should look for wood that is uniformly dark and has a straight, open grain.

Sometimes, stumps are cut into veneer that has a burled grain, which is unsuitable for flooring. Some trees that grow in poor soil twist as they grow, resulting in a curly grain that can add some visual interest to your floors. Walnut flooring will darken with age and develop a lustrous patina.

It’s available as solid wood and engineered wood flooring. And because it’s very stable, it’s good to use over radiant heating systems.

If you’re looking for something unusual and dramatic for your home, American black walnut has a lot to offer.

Read about other types of domestic hardwoods here.

Black Walnut Image Flickr: heyerin