FOCUS ON WOOD Touch Wood Real wood is tough to beat when it comes to
bringing nature indoors and adding warmth and character to the home, but how easy is it to install and is it difficult to care for? Peter Keane, of The Natural Wood Floor Co, takes a look.
Wood flooring is a classic choice that works across any style of property, from contemporary to traditional and everything in between. It is also a surface that is suitable for virtually any room in the home, mixing well with other popular materials like stone and metal and injecting personality and warmth into large and small spaces alike. While the temptation can be to opt for wood- effect flooring, nothing quite compares to the real thing, with engineered wood flooring creating a high-end finish that is surprisingly simple to care for and extremely durable.
Understanding how such flooring is made will help you make the best choice for your home, with the difference between solid and engineered wood being of particular importance. Historically, solid flooring was the primary choice for interiors, but this option is not suitable for environments with high humidity and can’t be used with underfloor heating. Needing to be screwed or nailed to the subfloor, solid flooring can also prove tricky and time-consuming to fit.
Engineered boards, on the other hand, can be fitted in most rooms in the house, including wet and humid areas such as the kitchen and bathroom and can be floated or fixed to most types of subfloor together with an underlay. This means that an acoustic underlay can be used to significantly reduce sound if the floor is fitted in apartments and upper floors.
An engineered board has up to 11 layers of plywood backing, with each layer glued at a 90° angle to the adjoining layer. The surface layer of a precious hardwood is then glued on top, resulting in a much more stable floor with a robust construction, which can be used with underfloor heating too, so your real wood floor is as warm to walk
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on as it is to look at. This is all good news in terms of installation, and for aesthetics too, with engineered wood flooring being available in a wide choice of colours and styles, making this a really versatile and practical option.
Once laid, keeping wood flooring looking as good as new is straightforward, although will depend on its finish. A combination of dry cleaning to remove dirt and dust particles, and damp cleaning to protect it against scratches is really all that is needed for a lacquered floor, with the occasional refreshing of the finish with a gloss polish completely revitalising it. If the floor is oiled, then it should be vacuumed or brushed daily and washed weekly.
There is no doubt that a real wood floor adds beauty to any home. Chosen well and with the right care, this is a flooring option that will look the part for many years.
www.naturalwoodfloor.co.uk
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