How to Install New Flooring

Thinking of adding a new layer of style to your home, a hardwood floor is certainly the way to go about starting this exciting new chapter. Homeowners who are searching for hardwood floors want elegance, strength and a traditional look to their home. It’s a timeless style to have a hardwood floor in your home, harking back to the days of the Early-Modern period whereby kings and queens were some of the first to have amazing hardwood floors. The list of materials has since, greatly increased making it one of the most attractive interior design areas for homeowners. Here is the process of installing a hardwood floor or perhaps a laminate floor.

 

Choosing the right material

 

The most popular materials for any hardwood floor are as follows.

 

• Oak – Very popular, as it’s affordable, tough, rugged and stands the test of time. It’s no wonder that British ships of the line were made from this very wood.
• Beech – A little more stylish, with a beige hue and general flex. It’s something that you would use for a lighter floor design.
• Mahogany – Need we say more? Everyone knows about this wood, the best of the best. Tough, rugged, extremely stylish with its reddish hue and very heat resistant so it won’t creak or groan.
• Yew – Elegant and flexible. This is a wood that Italy is best known for. Once upon a time, it was used to make English longbows, now it’s used for hardwood floors that need to be flexible. If you live in a hot climate, this wood will breathe and prevent itself from cracking easily.
• Walnut – A strong wood and has a mature demeanour. It’s not as bright and vibrant as cherry, but it’s got almost all the qualities for a little less of the price.
• Laminate – it’s perhaps the most affordable material for hardwood flooring. It offers you the kind of style of a hardwood floor but with much less of the maintenance demands. It’s great for families and homes with pets. It’s a simpler lock and installing system. It will take much less time to put in your home and you have more style choices than hardwood flooring.

 

Choose the finish

 

The most popular finish is a thick varnish. It provides a lot of protection and is scratch-resistant. It’s something that you could use in a hot or wet climate. If you have wet shoes when you walk into your home, the moisture won’t seep into the wood grain and cause it to expand or absorb.

 

You can also have a simple oil finish. This is for keeping the most natural look and not hiding the grains of the wood. The wood pattern is very much left intact and this gives your wood a rugged and rustic look.

 

You can have a mixture of both finishes if you like. This would give your material protection and keep its natural look. If you want a darker finish, the varnish is the only way to go. If the place welcomes mats and rugs to wipe your feet on when you come inside and perhaps don’t live in a rural part of the country, then just an oil finish will be exquisite.

 

The installation phase

 

Firstly, your floor needs to be prepared. You should safely remove your existing floorboards, baseboards and or quarter-moulding. Then you should check if the subfloor is solid, strong, clean and flat. This allows you to see and fix any part of it that you need in order to get a nice smooth fit of your new boards. You should remove any unwanted nails or replace any of the baseboards that are damaged.

 

You also need to prepare door jams, so the boards will fit the unique cut of the door frame design. Then move onto the first and law rows, so you have a framework from which to work your way into the center of the room. When you’re happy with the result, you can cut the boards and lay the underlayment. Finally, you begin to slowly but surely, lay down your new boards, making sure they’re secure and fitting properly to ensure long usage and lifetime.

 

The finishing touch

 

For the final touches to your new floor, you can sand down some edges and make the surface smoother. This is something that should be done discreetly and sparingly. It could be where your floor meets a door. To stop the edges from being too shaped, you can gently curve and smooth them so they don’t cause trousers to snag or discomfort your pets. You may need to varnish the exposed bits but this shouldn’t be a problem.

 

You can also carve your name and date into one piece of wood that is in the corner of the room. This is done traditionally, to show what family or homeowner fitted the floor and on what date. You never know, in 50 years, someone could come across the carving when researching your home in a renovation project or family history.

 

This has been a general guide for how to install a hardwood floor and or laminate floor. Both are great choices and add so much style to your home. Pick the right kind of wood, and determine the kind of finish you want. Call in the experts and we’ll handle the rest for you.