Wood-Look Flooring or Hardwood Flooring
Professional hardwood flooring is usually the number one choice for flooring material among most homeowners living in McKinney, Texas, and for a good reason. Hardwood flooring adds monetary value to your property along with some personality and a lot of style and character. Like most homeowners, here at Floors Touch, we love our hardwood floors. Our company takes tremendous pride in each one of the hardwood floor types that we install. But what if there is an area in your house that isn’t suitable for hardwood flooring?
You don’t have to worry because we have some options for you – in this blog, we will tell you about various alternative options that you can use instead of solid hardwood, which will still help you bring a similar look to your home.
But first, you need to know if your home is suitable for solid hardwood flooring.
You need to look for a few essential things to find out if an area of your house is suitable for hardwood flooring. They are:
Location
First, what is the level of your room where you wish to get hardwood flooring installed? On grade and above grade levels of a house are typically recommended if you want to install a solid hardwood floor. This refers to the first floor of your home and anything above it.
Various other flooring options would make more sense for your below-grade levels, such as basement or areas built below ground level.
Climatic stability
You need to understand that climate can fluctuate drastically with the change in seasons. You also need to understand that hardwood flooring tends to react to such climatic changes by absorbing moisture when the weather is humid and contracting and expanding when the temperature fluctuates from one season to another.
With that said, one major point that needs to be considered is if you are planning on controlling your home’s interior climate throughout the changing seasons.
You need to consider having things like central heating and cooling systems, along with other devices such as dehumidifiers, inside your home if hardwood flooring is what you plan on installing.
Subfloor type
Ideally, plywood and wooden subfloors are the choice material to install solid hardwood. Using cleats, nails, and staplers is always our recommended method of installing hardwood floors. If you have a cemented subfloor, your hardwood flooring needs to be glued to the surface, and even if done under ideal circumstances, it is never a method of choice.
Various other market materials are suitable for such subfloors that would not just last longer but will also make more sense to install.
Now that you have a better idea if a particular room in your house is suitable for hardwood flooring let’s go over some wood-look materials that you can consider instead of hardwood.
Floating wood-look vinyl planks
These composite human-made materials are continually gaining popularity amongst homeowners, and the flooring industry keeps making them better every year. Even though there may be different manufacturers of materials, you can choose from, each of these materials have the same advantages overall.
- These are clickable floating flooring systems which means that they can be installed over any subfloor material.
- With the first layer being vinyl, this flooring type is much more resistant to mold and water, which means that they can be installed below grade, where there is more humidity and moisture.
- Most floating vinyl planks have attached underlayment to them, which makes these materials softer on the feet.
- There is a massive variety of styles that these materials come in. If you were dead set on getting a solid hardwood floor, but your house won’t allow it, we are sure that there is a floating vinyl plank out there that will give you your desired look.
The printing technology for the top layer of this type of floor has improved dramatically over the years. They offer reclaimed looks, distressed looks, and various colors from whitewashed to true black, all while keeping the look and character of real wood.
Wood-look tile
We understand that it is pretty easy for anybody to tell a wood-look tile floor apart from a solid hardwood floor by just looking, but this does not mean that your home cannot have the particular style of wooden floor you initially wanted.
Even though tile is hard, it is your best and most durable option for places like kitchens, basements, and bathrooms. You also have options like radiant underneath heat, which makes the thought of a cold and freezing tile floor to be a thing of the past.
There are also some genuinely gorgeous ceramic and porcelain wood-look tiles out in the market; there is no doubt that you’ll find one that fits your home’s look perfectly.
Luxury vinyl plank flooring
Luxury vinyl plank flooring is somewhere between your average floating vinyl flooring systems and the wood-look tile flooring. They are vinyl planks that are mold and water-resistant, like floating vinyl planks but are a bit harder on your feet, similar to tiles.
The difference with this flooring type is that it is always glued down, and since it has to be glued down, your subfloor must feature a truly flat surface.
This material does not do well with bumps, waves, or divots since it greatly prefers a clean and flat surface to adhere to. The appearance of such a type of flooring has come a long way in the past few years. You can now get high-definition imagery on your surface, which mimics all kinds of solid wood species.
Get in touch with Floors Touch today!
If you live in McKinney, TX, and are planning on getting a wood-look floor, then our team at Floors Touch can help. We offer a complete selection of various types of flooring solutions that will change the look and feel of your home. In addition to McKinney, TX, we also serve clients in Allen, Prosper, Princeton, Melissa, Celina, Anna, Van Alstyne and Sherman.
Not only are all our products high end, but they also come at the most competitive price in the area. Give us a call at (214) 326-0100 or contact us online, and we will tell you all your options.
Do you want to know more about our home flooring solutions? Call Floors Touch of McKinney at (214) 326-0100 for more information.