Blog Archive | July 2011

Freshen up the look of your home with wooden flooring

Changing a few things within the home every now and again can help to prevent you from becoming bored with the way it looks, and if you’re now starting to think that the time is right to make a change, why not think about changing your flooring?

The flooring in your home makes up one of the largest parts of decor, so it’s important to make sure that it’s doing your home justice. If you do still have carpets in your home though, you could be doing decor a huge disservice, as some styles of carpets are starting to look a little old fashioned and therefore won’t make for the freshest of looks.

Replacing your carpets with wooden flooring can help to freshen up the look of your home no end though, and by choosing the right type of flooring you can keep it looking fresh for a long time to come.

There are several different types of wooden flooring, in different shades and offering different levels of durability, available, so there’s wooden flooring out there to freshen up the look of every home.

Top tips for installing engineered wood flooring

When installing engineered wood flooring, it is always recommended that you get in an expert to complete the job for you. Unless you really know what you’re doing or you have extensive DIY experience, this is the best way to ensure you get a truly professional finish.

If you do attempt to install your engineered wood flooring yourself, there are a few important things you need to know before you start.

• Get all tools and equipment ready before you begin. Make sure you hire, buy or borrow any equipment you need ahead of time to avoid unnecessary and potentially damaging delays when laying your floor.

• Assess the condition of the sub-floor. Before any wood flooring can be laid in a room, the sub-floor needs to be in good condition – dry, even, flat and undamaged. You may need to call in a professional to work on the sub-floor if it is not in good shape.

• Acclimatisation. Check whether the engineered wood flooring needs to be acclimatised to the room or not (this is where it is laid out to adjust to the heat and humidity in the room). This may prevent any slight warping or swelling from occurring later on, particularly if the room is a very hot or humid space.

Wood flooring in conservatories

There are a few vital things to remember when designing your new conservatory. For example:

• It should fit with the design and style of the rest of the property
• It should be a proper size and not so large as to dwarf the house  or eat into valuable garden space
• The flooring you choose  is crucial to the finished look of the conservatory

Looking at this last point in more detail, it is important to balance both style and functionality when picking out flooring for your new conservatory. Engineered wood flooring can look phenomenal in a conservatory, the natural beauty of the wood perfectly suiting the indoor-outdoor feel of the space. But is it the most practical of floor coverings?

Compared to other materials, Engineered hardwood flooring is easy to clean and extremely durable. If you have pets or children you may have to do a little more work to keep it clean, but a quick brush and damp mop every so often is much easier than trying to clean the grouting between floor tiles. Engineered hardwood flooring feels warmer underfoot in the winter, and retains its warmth and lustrous appearance in the summer.

If you are worried that your engineered hardwood flooring may get damaged in a space so close to the outdoors or you simply want a more affordable option, you might want to try laminate wood effect flooring.

How to find wooden flooring to suit your budget

Wood flooring is widely used in homes and commercial spaces throughout the world, and there are many different types and styles available. Choosing one for your home not only depends on your tastes and the décor of the property, it is also hugely affected by your budget.

For those with plenty of money to invest in their homes, hardwood flooring is the way forward. It can even be worth saving up for hardwood flooring, or even spending a little more than you intended in order to get it, because it offers so many benefits.

As well as its naturally beautiful aesthetic appeal, an authentic hardwood floor is also guaranteed to last you far longer than many other flooring materials. Oak hardwood flooring, in particular, is known for being strong, durable and incredibly long-lasting (provided it is well-maintained), so it can be seen as a sound investment that will serve your family well for decades.

A more affordable option that offers similar levels of quality is engineered wood flooring, a material made by layering and bonding wood together in such a way that it creates stable wooden planks.

The most budget-friendly flooring solution you can go for is laminate flooring, a synthetic solution that nonetheless offers a good resemblance of real wood flooring.

How to restore damaged hardwood flooring to its former glory

Hardwood flooring is designed to last for years, if not decades. If you choose a material like oak or maple, you can be sure that you are getting a floor that is hard, strong and resilient to anything that hectic family life or a bustling working environment can throw at it.

Real wood flooring requires care and maintenance in order to keep it in prime condition. There are some circumstances, however, where marks, scratches, dents and other problems can’t be avoided. The only way to fix imperfections and damage like this is through floor sanding.

Floor sanding is a process by which the top layer or layers of the wood surface are sanded away. Any marks in the surface of the wood are eliminated by this method, giving your flooring a ‘brand new’ appearance and a new lease of life.

There are a few things to remember if you are considering restoring your hardwood flooring through floor sanding:

1. Use a professional. Unless you know what you are doing and have the right equipment, you should always consult an experienced floor sanding expert. Fail to do this and you could end up ruining your floor.

2. Your floor will need to be re-finished once sanding is complete. The process takes off the top layers of wood, so your glossy finish will have to be reapplied.

3. Your floor can only be sanded a certain number of times. Ask the manufacturer or supplier of your wood flooring about this.

Oak hardwood flooring and its incredible versatility

The great thing about hardwood flooring is that there are so many types of wood, patterns, designs and finishes to choose from. There is even more choice if you go with laminate or engineered wood flooring, where you can create virtually any look you could imagine.

Of all the many beautiful types of wood out there, oak has to be one of the most popular. A key reason why oak hardwood flooring can be found in so many homes nowadays is its versatility, as there is a wide spectrum of colour tones and textures to choose from.  You can do virtually anything with it, and it works well in all rooms of the house as well as in commercial environments.

Whilst you can find oak in nearly every colour tone and style, the most commonly used varieties for hardwood flooring are European character grade, red oak and American white oak.  Red oak is very popular in America, where it is known for its pinkish/brown tone and the way it gradually changes colour over time. American white oak is also incredibly popular, mainly due to its classic beauty, strength and resilience, But by far the most popular choice in the UK is European character oak in wide planks.

Oak is also known for its strength and durability, making it a sound investment for any home. With proper maintenance, it can retain its natural beauty and serve you and your family well for decades to come.

An explanation of hardwood flooring terms

When installing your new hardwood flooring, or even if you hire a professional to do the job for you, you are likely to come across a lot of terms you have never heard of before. Not understanding these terms and abbreviations can make the job trickier, so it can be useful to do your homework.

The following are a few of the most commonly used but not frequently understood terms related to buying and installing hardwood flooring, and of course – what they all mean…

• DPM – this stands for Damp Proof Membrane, which is a vapour barrier used underneath hardwood flooring to protect it from rising moisture from the sub floor.

• Floating floor – this is a floor which is not attached to its own sub floor using nails or adhesive. It is a floor type most often used with laminate flooring material.

• Burrs – these are clusters of small knots in hardwood flooring which create a cats-paw like pattern

• EMC – this stands for Equilibrium Moisture Content, which is the moisture content a material achieves in an atmosphere in which both humidity and temperature are stable

• Tongue & Groove – this is a method commonly used to install engineered and soild wood flooring, where male and female profiles on each floorboard lock together.

Can underfloor heating be used with hardwood flooring?

Hardwood flooring is a naturally warm material, and a great insulator, so it doesn’t necessarily need to be heated. However, some people with wood flooring choose to install systems like Underfloor heating as a way of heating their entire homes, but not all of these people properly research how well the two work together and which species of hardwood flooring to use.

There are arguments both for and against using Underfloor heating systems with hardwood flooring. Some people would say that it can help to keep an even temperature over the entire surface of the floor. This reduces the ‘hotspots’ you sometimes get with radiators which is a real benefit.

On the other hand, SOLID hardwood flooring is known to be unstable on Underfloor heating, and it can therefore be at risk from warping / swelling or shrinking when exposed to sources of subfloor heat, so we strongly recommend against its use with Underfloor heating. To prevent this, you can buy Hardwood flooring that is engineered and made up of layers of wood and works fantastically with under floor heating, with the 21mm range having the same life span as the solid version, so the floors will be around for generations to come and look as good if not better than the solid hardwood flooring as we can lay it in widths up to a stunning 300mm wide on Underfloor heating. I have had the 260mm engineered oak planks at my home since 2008, laid over a water Underfloor heating system & I have to say I am over the moon with how the floor feels and reacts.

If you are still unsure whether to install Underfloor heating with your hardwood flooring, even after doing some research, it is recommended that you seek advice from a wood flooring expert before proceeding with your plans. Call or email Just wood Flooring for no obligation professional advice.

Hardwood flooring can give your home office a professional touch

Working from home- whether you work for yourself or for a company- is great, as not only do you get to avoid commuting in heavy rush hour traffic, you also get to avoid many of the distractions which working in the average office can bring.

To be able to work to the very best of your ability though, you need make sure that your home office has a professional ambience, and the decor in your home office probably plays the biggest part in this.

Carpets in a home office often don’t make for the most professional look or feel, although you can easily give your office that all important professional touch by investing in hardwood flooring.

By swapping your carpets for hardwood flooring the ambience of your home office can be completely changed- as can its look.

You have lots of choice when it comes to adding a professional touch to your home office too, as stunningly beautiful hardwood flooring constructed from a variety of different woods is available to cost-efficiently invest in.

Adding a professional touch with hardwood flooring really can help you to get the most from each and every working day.