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You have questions, we have answers. Explore the most frequently asked questions about hardwood flooring below. Need assistance or want to know more? Contact Carlisle or call 800-595-9663 today to get all your inquiries answered.
While marble, natural stone, bamboo, ceramic tile and luxury vinyl have been trending in recent years, hardwood is still the dominant choice of flooring for high-end homes. Owners of high-end properties have a wide range of luxury wood flooring options to choose from, including wide plank floors, distressed flooring, exotic hardwoods, reclaimed floors and engineered hardwood flooring.
The consensus among real estate agents is that hardwood floors add more value to a home than any other material. By some estimates, new hardwood floors may add as much as 2.5%[1] to 10%[2] to a home’s value.
Wide plank hardwood flooring uses floorboards that are 5” to 20” wide and up to 16’ long. Compared to floors made from standard commercial floorboards which are no more than 3” wide and 4’ long, a wide plank floor has a much less busy appearance and adds a sense of spaciousness to a room. Wide plank floors also allow the natural beauty of the wood and the personality of the grain to be fully revealed in each floorboard.
Explore and select from our gallery of our most popular finishes, specially categorized by the personalities and traits of the floor designs.
ExploreWhile there are a lot of factors that determine the cost of a hardwood floor, wide plank floors tend to be more expensive than standard commercial flooring. This is due in part to the extra labor involved in producing and manufacturing wider floorboards, and to the fact that wider planks must be harvested from larger, older trees.
Because it has far fewer seams than a standard commercial floor, a wide plank floor helps a room to feel larger and more spacious. When wide plank floors are installed on a diagonal, the visual effect of added spaciousness is even greater.
Engineered hardwood flooring has become a highly popular choice for high-end homes. While an engineered floor will look and feel nearly identical to a solid wood floor, the way that engineered floorboards are constructed means they perform better in locations with higher levels of moisture and humidity. An engineered floorboard is made with a top layer of hardwood that’s glued to 5 to 11 layers of backing material like plywood, high-density fiberboard or a hardwood like Baltic Birch. With the grain pattern in each layer running a different direction, this multilayered construction creates a highly stable core that is less likely to expand, contract or warp when exposed to higher levels of relative humidity. Consequently, engineered hardwood floors perform very well in locations like bathrooms, kitchens, mud rooms, basements and in installation over radiant heating systems or concrete slabs.
Engineered wood floors scratch no more or less easily than solid hardwood floors. Solid or engineered floors made of softer woods like Cherry or Walnut are more susceptible to scratching than floors made from Maple or Hickory, two of the hardest woods that are commonly used in flooring.
Luxury vinyl planks are made with four layers of synthetic material and mimic the appearance of hardwood planks. The design layer of a luxury vinyl plank can be imprinted with an image to re-create the look of any hardwood. This layer is adhered to a rigid vinyl backing layer and covered by a layer of film that resists tearing and a layer of aluminum oxide that prevents scratches. A luxury vinyl plank offers even greater resistance to moisture than an engineered floorboard, but engineered floors are more durable and eco-friendly. Luxury vinyl is roughly 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of an engineered floor. Ultimately, deciding between engineered hardwood and luxury vinyl planks comes down to the homeowner’s preference for how the floor should look, feel and perform.
Distressed wood flooring is a new floor that is made to look like an antique or vintage floor by distressing or texturing the floorboards. Craftsmen may use wire brushes to wear away softer grains, giving the floor the appearance of a surface that has been lived on and walked on for generations. Hand-scraping the edges of new floorboards mimics the appearance of centuries-old floors where craftsmen would smooth the transitions from one board to the next by drawing a knife over the edges. A distressed floor adds visual interest and a sense of authenticity and beauty to any room.
Reclaimed hardwood floors are fashioned from timbers that have been salvaged from old buildings like barns, farmhouses and factories destined for demolition. Because these timbers are weathered and worn, a reclaimed floor has feeling of age and history, adding character and authenticity to the room. Reclaimed floors retain all the original imperfections of the wood, including saw marks, discoloration, nail holes, wormholes and other features that make this flooring surface incredibly unique.
Carlisle Wide Plank Floors has been a leading provider of wood floors for high-end homes for more than half a century. We offer a broad range of wide plank solid hardwood and engineered floors along with reclaimed floors and distressed floors. Carlisle floors may be prefinished in our factory or finished on site within a home. Made from a broad range of hardwood or Pine timbers, our floors will transform any room to delight homeowners and visitors for years to come.
