Best Hardwood Flooring Choices

So you’ve decided to transform your home with beautiful hardwood flooring.  Which hardwood will you choose? Let’s consider the most popular varieties of hardwood flooring options and the pros and cons of each.
The five most popular hardwoods for flooring are oak, walnut, hickory, maple, and cherry.

Oak Hardwood Flooring

Durable, hard and easy to work with, oak flooring offers great water resistance and can be refinished easily. Oak is also affordable. Compared to other hardwoods, it tends to contract and expand with changes in temperature and humidity. It’s reasonably priced and versatile, with many finishing options.

Walnut Hardwood Flooring

Beautiful, rich and dark, Walnut offers the smoothest texture and is even resistant to humidity. In fact, it also has the unique quality of repelling insects. Walnut’s luxurious dark hues and interesting textures are well suited for larger spaces. It does require some additional care, as it will scratch easily.

Hickory Hardwood Flooring

It’s the second hardest wood among these fine options, yet it’s only purchased five percent of the time. Hickory is highly resilient to marring. Usually found in wide planks to show off the unique mineral streaks and knots, hickory is extremely expensive, super durable, yet performs poorly in humidity, even to the point of swelling significantly. It is not an option for DIYers to install, as it is such a strong, resilient wood.

Maple Hardwood Flooring

Tough, light, and neutral colored, Maple can stand the test of time. It is wildly popular because it is at home in most any décor style. It’s also very affordable!  However, it is sensitive to humidity and limited in choices of stain colors it can accept. It will show scratches fairly easily.

Cherry Hardwood Flooring

Especially popular in the early 2000’s, Cherry remains an excellent choice for hardwood floors. It is a very hard wood, and accepts stains and color options well. Not a good candidate for DIY installation due to its hardness, yet it offers a beautiful finish and remains very popular.

Need Help Installing Floors in Your Home? Ask the Experts at Factory Flooring

What type of underlayment should you use? How many inches thick? How do you install it? And how do you avoid damaging your floors in the process? 

When you work with Factory Flooring, you don’t have to worry about these questions. Our team of professional flooring installers will handle all the heavy lifting for you — literally. All you have to do is relax and enjoy the savings on your energy bill. 

Need to get more flooring ideas first? Our design blog has dozens of articles to help you get started. Whenever you’re ready to tackle your insulation project, we’ll be here to help. Contact us online to get started, or call Factory Flooring at 469-583-7053 .