Beautiful solid wood floors can look wonderful, creating a true sense of style and individuality and a modern, contemporary feel within any home. There are many different types of real wood flooring, each with its own unique look. Aged or worn floors, the distinctive lines of parquet flooring, there are engineered wood flooring and slatted flooring, as well as tile paneling and finished grain wood block flooring.

Aged and worn floors

Aged or weathered hardwood floors present a sleek and vivid style. It seems, to everyone, as if your flooring has been in place for years and adds a certain authenticity to your home. Aged and aged floors are also a very practical option for both homes and commercial properties because they stay in good condition longer. The rough, worn, and vivid appearance will not show the scratches and marks caused by everyday use. They are also a popular choice because they never require sanding unlike other types of hardwood floors.

Parquet floors

Parquet floors are a very popular choice and one of the reasons for this is that a parquet floor can be laid in many different ways, with so many different designs. Available patterns are Herringbone, Double Herringbone, Single Basket Weave, Treble Basket Weave, and Chevron. You can also opt for parquet panels, parquet borders, parquet motifs and parquet floor medallions.

Synthetic wood flooring

Engineered flooring can be installed that floats over the base, secretly nailed to existing wood subfloors, or fully glued to the concrete or wood subfloor. Engineered floors are great if you need to reduce the noise level in a room and they work well with underfloor heating systems. Engineered wood flooring is available in a wide range of sizes, from 14mm 3-strip flooring to 20mm wide structural engineered planks. Strip floors

There is a wide variety of solid tongue and grooved strip flooring available in European Oak, French Oak, American Black Walnut, Wenge, Antique Oak, Reclaimed Pine, and Merbau. Wood slat flooring, like engineered wood flooring, can be secretly nailed to wood subfloors or glued to concrete subfloors, but unlike engineered wood flooring, they are not recommended for use. with underfloor heating systems. Slat floors are very easy to maintain and can be sanded multiple times to give them a new look, making them great value for money.

Mosaic Panels Mosaic Panels, also known as finger parquet, is an older style of flooring that was widely used in the 1960s and is available in European oak, mahogany, teak, and merbau. If laying mosaic panels on a wood or concrete base, an epoxy glue should be used, but if the panels have a felt backing, an alcohol-based adhesive should be used. End Grain Wood Block Flooring

End grain wood block flooring is available in a number of wood species including European larch, European oak, European smoked oak, pine, and fir. The wood is cut through the growth rings to produce a very different look than most common slatted floors. It is extremely rugged and therefore ideal for areas that experience a lot of foot traffic.

Wood Floor Repairs

From time to time your hardwood floor will need to be repaired, whether it’s to remove scratches or stains or even to fix a floor that was poorly laid in the first place. Scratches can be sanded with fine to medium sandpaper, but it is recommended to replace stained floorboards because depending on how deeply the stain has entered the wood, you may have to sand quite hard to remove the stain and this could mean that the floor section will not look the same as the rest.

If you are lucky enough to inherit an original hardwood floor or are looking to restore a floor that was carpeted years ago, you may need to make some repairs. This may involve replacing sections of the old wood floor with new wood. If you need to do this, it is advisable to obtain wood that, as closely as possible, matches the original wood, in color and type.

Once the repairs have been made, the floor should be machine sanded to a fine finish and the gaps filled. Once this is done, you can start staining the floor in your chosen color. Sometimes stains on your floor will only become apparent after the floor is machine sanded or even after applying your new chosen finish. If this happens, you can choose to replace that section or leave it because it adds character to your floor.

The original parquet floors were glued and pinned with copper heads. Over the years, these eroded leaving spots around each fixation. Unfortunately, these stains cannot be removed, but it must be said that they are part of the character of the floors. When installing new parquet, stainless steel headless pins are used to prevent this problem from occurring in the future.

Why is it important to hire a professional?

With the increasing number of DIY shows on television, many people try to restore their own hardwood floors only to find that it is not as easy as it sounds on television. Professional wood floor restoration companies will have invested in the right machinery for the job and also in the right training.

Being inexperienced and using unforgiving machines can cause extreme damage to your hardwood floor and can reduce its life by as much as 50%, which is why it is important to hire a company whose employees are fully trained and qualified in restoration of wood floor. This will ensure that the least amount of wood is removed during the sanding process and therefore will extend the life of your floor.

Hiring a professional to do the job will leave you with the perfect finish and may even end up saving you money, after all it would be much more expensive to try the job yourself, hire the machines, buy the sandpaper and finishing materials, just then having to hire the professionals to redo the job afterwards because you are not satisfied with the finish.

What should a person look for when choosing a flooring supplier?

When looking for a company that supplies and adapts your flooring, you should look for a company that can demonstrate the quality of their work. Ask to see examples of their work or at least photos of it and ask them to produce genuine testimonials.

Ask to see proof of your qualifications. Duly qualified UK flooring contractors will have passed City & Guilds NVQ level 2 in floor coverings and should have passed the health and safety test and have a valid CSCS card for commercial work.

Check the equipment they plan to use and ask what measures they put in place to minimize dust – the last thing you want is to clean the house for weeks after they’re gone.

Confirm that they offer a free, no-obligation survey and estimate.