Hardwood floors are one of the most natural floor finishes that exist. The best part of timber flooring is that many homes already have them, sitting under your carpet or tiles just waiting to be brought to life!

Right There!

If you house isn’t built on a cement slab, chances are you have wooden flooring. If you have a wooden floor then you just may have the perfect floor waiting for you, all you need to do is put in some elbow grease and bring it to its full splendour.

Is it hardwood?

Most floors will be made of hardwood. It would be very unusual to find a floor made of soft wood such as pine. Hardwood takes longer to grow than softwoods such as pine and therefore the cost of hardwood is higher. If you have an older house and you find you don’t have a wood floor, there is a chance that the original hardwood floor may have been ripped up and sold to someone looking for hardwood flooring. When environmental laws first starting coming into being in the 1980s they made hardwood harder to harvest and plantation hardwood is slow growing. During the 1980s and 1990s there was actually a healthy trade in selling the good quality hardwood floors from old houses and putting them into renovated premises as a feature.

So, what are the advantages of wooden flooring?

• Cost – many houses already have them, they are just hidden away.
• Look – hardwood and bamboo flooring look natural and give the whole room an aesthetic quality.
• DIY – if you are handy there is a good chance that you can sand and polish your own floorboards.
• Spills – floor boards are child friendly and will take spill after spill after spill.
• Feel – floor boards aren’t as hard as tiles so not all items will break or shatter if they fall.
• Touch Up – floor boards can be re-sanded and re-sealed over and over, unlike tiles which once cracked need to be discarded.
• Clean – as they don’t absorb stains and odours, floor boards can be a cleaner option.
• Dust – floor boards attract dust just like any other surface, but dust is easier to get off wood than out of carpet.
• Change – if you want a change of look or feel, just grab a rug and throw it down, or change your rug!

Floor boards have been a necessity for generations and most of our parents and grandparents spend years saving to buy carpet or a large room rug. Now that timber is back in vogue you can take advantage of something that you may already have, right under your feet.