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Today’s wood floors come in a variety of grains and colors. When considering what type
of wood to purchase, remember that light colored woods make a room more open
and airy; medium colored woods make a room warm and cozy; and dark colored
woods produce a stately and refined look.
Light woods, such as ash and maple, lend themselves to a contemporary setting.
Medium colored woods, like hickory and oak, complement a casual d
écor; and dark woods, which include mahogany and walnut, produce a more formal
feel.
Here are some tips from Consumer Reports on what to know before you start shopping for wood floors. Begin by considering
where the flooring will go and how much traffic, sunlight and other wear and
tear it will get. Most solid woods fare very well in moisture tests, but many
engineered woods and a few solid woods flub that test
—a serious drawback in a busy kitchen.
How to shop
Before settling on a product, spend a few dollars on two or three samples. That
can be a lot less expensive than winding up with flooring that looks great in a
catalog or on a Web site and then awful in your home. Manufacturers generally
match most wood or engineered-wood flooring for color and grain, but variations
can occur from one batch to the next, so buy the flooring you
’ll need all at once.
To determine how much you need, measure the room’s square footage by multiplying its length times its width. (Divide an
irregularly shaped room into smaller rectangles, calculate the square footage
of each rectangle, and then add them together.) Then buy 7 percent to 10
percent extra to allow for mistakes, bad samples, and waste. You might also
want to invest in an extra box of flooring for future repairs or additions.
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How to save
One way to save is on over-stocks. Discounters such as iFloor, www.ifloor.com, and Lumber Liquid-ators, www.lumberliquidators.com, buy directly from manufacturers. They also buy overstocked flooring and sell
it below list price. Other ways to save include taking purchasing opened or
damaged boxes or flooring with minor flaws that no one will notice.
If you hire a professional to do the installation, you can trim hundreds of
dollars off the job by doing the time-consuming prep work yourself
—like prying up the old flooring, leveling or filling the subfloor and removing
any baseboard that
’s in the way.
Going green
Manufacturers heavily promote bamboo as a renewable resource because they can
harvest this fast-growing grass in as little as four years. While the best
bamboo topped our tests, some is still prone to denting and sun-induced color
change. Cork is considered a renewable resource as well because it
’s cut from the bark without killing the tree. But the best we tested was
expensive.
When you get it home
Before installing wood flooring, unpack it and let it sit for one to three days
in the space where it will be installed so that its temperature and moisture
match the levels in the room.
Keeping new floors looking good
If you need to heat the room soon after installation, raise the temperature
gradually over the course of a week
—especially if you have radiant heat—to allow the flooring to adjust. Sweep or vacuum floors with a soft broom or
brush, and clean with a damp but not overly wet mop. Put felt pads under
furniture to prevent scratching.
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