High-Impact Floors

With increased access to flooring options from around the world, homeowners are generating more surface appeal.

May 2006 | by Andrew Bacskai

This home office features solid white oak planks with American walnut feature strips. The floor was finished at the home using an oil-based surface finish.

Photograph courtesy of the National Wood Flooring Association

Another technique that’s being applied more frequently to hardwood floors is hand scraping. As its name indicates, hand-scraped wood is literally scraped manually, one plank at a time, which gives the wood an old-fashioned, rustic look. “Traditionally, most people didn’t want any kind of blemishes in their floors,” Schmid says. “Now, people are going the opposite way and looking for something that has some more character to it.”

Generally speaking, most wood floors, be they exotic, reclaimed, or hand-scraped, are readily available in a variety of plank widths—from 3⁄4 inch up to six inches and beyond. They also can be done in unfinished or prefinished form. “Prefinished floors are becoming extremely popular,” Schmid says. Prefinished floors are created by applying a finish—typically aluminum oxide—in a dust-free, paint-box environment in a factory setting. Prefinished wood is more expensive than unfinished, Schmid explains, but that expense is typically offset by the lower installation costs.

Wood is also making its way into more parts of the house, including basements and below-grade rooms, where moisture concerns have been offset by engineered “floating floors,” in which the wood is glued or locked together and placed on a foam pad, rather than fastened to the existing floor. Hardwood also is becoming a highly favored floor in kitchens.

“Basically, you’ll find that hardwood floors are going every place but full bathrooms,” Schmid says.

Turning to Stone

In bathrooms, tile, especially types made of natural stone like granite and limestone, continues to reign supreme. “In terms of functionality, it works so well to do those materials in bathrooms,” Flesher says.

Like hardwood, granite and limestone varieties are now available from around the world. Limestone is a porous rock that’s generally a more muted, earthy tone—gray, brown, or cream-colored. “It’s very honed-looking; it’s not a shiny surface,” Goodwin says. “I think it’s warmer looking than, say, marble, which would be used for a more formal circumstance.”

Granite is denser than limestone and, consequently, a bit more adaptable. Granite, which makes up a significant part of every continent, contains three main minerals—quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase feldspar—that can determine the rock’s color, therefore offering a wide selection of color options. “The granite selections are huge—every color known to mankind,” Goodwin says.

For ceramic tiles, Flesher tends to prefer those that aren’t disguised as natural stone. “There are some beautiful ceramic tiles, even the basic 3-inch-by-6 inch subway tile. That has a lot of appeal,” he says. Flesher designed a bathroom in which white subway tile was installed from floor to ceiling. “It looked amazing, and it couldn’t be more functional,” he says.