The Real Thing

By: Tim Snyder (Page 3 of 6)

Photo: Courtesy of�Bruce Hardwood Floors

Photo: Courtesy of Bruce Hardwood Floors

Photo: Courtesy of Bruce Hardwood Floors

Engineered flooring looks like solid wood, but it's made from thin, cross-laminated wood plies that are glued together to form strips or planks. A factory-applied finish like the one on this Maple Harborlight flooring from Bruce Hardwood Floors is very durable, so you can walk on this floor as soon as it's installed.

Photo: Courtesy of Bruce Hardwood Floors

Solid-wood Strip flooring, popular in new construction, can be refinished many times. This solid-maple Kennedale Prestige Plank from Bruce Hardwood Floors contrasts nicely with the dark-stained wood furniture and painted walls.

Photo: Courtesy of Bruce Hardwood Floors

Parquet Flooring comes in square pieces instead of in strips or planks. This Harris Square oak parquet floor from Harris-Tarkett was installed in a conventional basketweave pattern.

Photo: Courtesy of Bruce Hardwood Floors

Exotic and antique wood floors from smaller companies are other options to consider. Most of these suppliers specialize in certain types of flooring—wide planks or floor boards made from salvaged timber, for example. Seen here are Santos mahogany flooring from Indusparquet and antique-pine wide planks from Goodwin Heart Pine Company.

Photo: Courtesy of Bruce Hardwood Floors

A decorative border like this one from Historic Floors of Oshkosh adds visual appeal and can also help to delineate space, as in this dining room. For ease of installation, the border should have the same thickness and edge detail as the flooring that joins it.

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Engineered Options

Made from several layers of wood bonded together, engineered flooring comes in strips and planks; it resembles solid wood once installed. Although it's essentially a plywood, there are definite benefits to engineered wood. First, most engineered flooring comes prefinished, so the floor is ready to walk on as soon as it's installed.

Second, the multiply composition of engineered flooring makes it more dimensionally stable than solid-wood flooring. You can install it just about anywhere — even in basements and bathrooms. What's more, this type of flooring is easier to install than solid wood. And because most engineered flooring isn't as thick (3/8 to 1/2 inch) as solid wood, you're less likely to encounter level-changing problems.

The variety of engineered flooring is staggering. There are different thicknesses and widths, different wood species and different finish treatments to consider. And the edges where strips or planks join can be eased or square. As you might expect, prices vary greatly — from a low of $2.50 to well over $6 per square foot for the material. Installation costs also vary, depending on the type of floor you choose and whether or not you do the work yourself.

Some engineered flooring is glued or nailed to a subfloor, while other material is simply glued to itself along each tongue-and-groove joint and allowed to float on a foam pad over the subfloor. Floating wood floors are the easiest to install over concrete.