Best Hardwood Floors

Wood floors come in a variety of styles, grains and colors. The look of your floor will depend a great deal on the species of wood you choose.

The easy availability, durability and resistance to marring has made hardwood maple the floor of choice in bowling alleys, gymnasiums and sports arenas for decades. Grown in the north central to northwest United States and Southern Canada, it is readily available. The pale white-blond color is attractive, and warms to a honey tone in the heartwood, making it a popular choice for airy contemporary rooms, where it’s a beautiful backdrop for greenery and furniture.

Here are some specifics of maple wood floors:

Color: Sugar maple, also known as rock maple, is the most commonly used maple for flooring. The color is light, ranging from a pale, almost silvery white to a warm light tan.

Grain: Maple has a closed, subdued grain with very distinctive patterns. Curlicues, swirls and ‘birds-eyes’ are not uncommon, though boards that show the most attractive grain patterns are sometimes culled from lots of wood to be sold at a premium.

Properties:

Strength: Hard maple’s strength has long made it the choice for floors that take a lot of beating – bowling alleys, arena floors and basketball courts are often made of maple. Its resistance to being marred by pointed objects makes maple flooring an excellent choice for high-wear areas like hallways and kitchens.

Flexibility: Maple floors have a lot of ‘give’, making them comfortable underfoot. The wood is slightly less stable than red oak, and maple floors are often built with a small perimeter border that will allow natural expansion and contraction without bowing or damaging the floor.

Stain-ability: Fairly impervious, maple’s fine, closed grain does not take stains well. A water-based, clear finish is most often recommended.

Hardness: Wood hardness is measured using the Janka scale, a test that measures the force required to embed a steel ball into a sample of the wood. It’s an excellent measure of the durability and ability of wood to withstand everyday wear and tear. It’s also useful in determining how difficult it is to work with. Rock maple’s Janka rating of 1450 is about 12% harder than red oak, a standard flooring strength. It resists denting and mars from heavy and pointed objects. Because of this, it’s recommended that nail holes be pre-drilled when working with maple.

Maple is the perfect choice for high traffic areas like hallways, family rooms and kitchens. With colors ranging from pale ashy white to warm honey-gold, maple is a wonderful backdrop for any decor from today’s open, ultra contemporary styles to cozy, natural country decorating. The durability and hardness of the wood coupled with its natural attractiveness to make it an excellent floor choice for rooms that will see heavy use. The light color of maple flooring will resist showing wear for far longer than a darker wood, though you’ll still need to take care if moving rolling carts or heavy items around.

Buying wood flooring online

Online wouldn’t be the first place most people would go to look for wood flooring, but now it’s essential to look online. Why? Simply because online prices are so competitive.

Think about it. An online store doesn’t need to position itself where it attracts local traffic, so it can house itself and store it’s products in low cost locations, thereby keeping costs down. That’s why online stores are so competitive. But make sure you look for a large reputable store.

LumberLiquidators.com is the biggest online flooring store. If you’re looking online for flooring you’ve got to check them out!