What to Consider Selecting Wood Flooring – Commercial Interior Design News

By guest blogger Jonathan Sapir of WoodandBeyond Ltd.

Wood flooring can be successfully used in most interior spaces, including busy and high traffic commercial settings of retail and office spaces. If you are selecting wood flooring for your commercial project, here are a few considerations to think about.

Color

In its natural state, most types of hardwood trees will produce lighter brown honey color wood, but this shade may not go well in some interiors. It is possible to find other sophisticated colors, making your floorboard more likely to suit what you need in you interior. Here are some techniques used to create different shades.

White Wood Floor – Using techniques such as whitewash (diluted paint) and lime waxes (paste like substance), floorboards can be modified from their original color to appear distressed white. The white color floorboards sit well in commercial interiors that gain little natural light or when you wish an area to appear bigger.

Dark Wood Floor – Floorboards can be made to appear light dark or even solid black using a number of techniques, most common of which are fuming, smoking and thermo treating. Such methods involve placing the floorboard in a closed confinement (tank or oven) until the required shade is achieved. The dark color floorboards would bit better in a traditional or more sophisticated interior. Just be made aware that dust and dirt shows up quickly on the dark floorboard.

Finish

Wood is a natural product that can be damaged easily. To protect a floorboard a finish or coating (a clear substance made on the basis of wax, oil and lacquer) is applied on top.

Oil – The most popular finish is oil which shares many similarities with wax coating. Both are incredibly easy to maintain and durable. Most oils will result in matt finish.

Lacquer – An alternative to oil or wax finish, is the lacquered substance. Besides resulting in a glossy look, the major difference between lacquered to other finishes is it ability to seal the floorboard making it waterproof. Handy if you are planning to have wood flooring in areas that may experience wet conditions such as a store or even rooms with moister such as bathrooms.

Grade

Floorboards made of natural wood contain natural features such as sapwood, knots and color variations. In certain interiors, these features are welcomed, in others a more uniform look is desired. Therefore, floorboards come in four common grades that indicate the amount of these features.

Rustic and Natural – These two are the basic grades, in which sapwood and knots are random and plentiful. Furthermore, color variations between various boards in the same pack will vary in shade.

Select and Prime – These two are more uniform grades, in which sapwood, knots and color variation are extremely limited. Naturally, select and prime grade are more expensive.

Floorboard Types

Once you have decided on the most suitable color, finish and grade, comes the part of choosing the floorboard type. There are two types of real wood flooring, one is made from whole wood, and an alternative is made from wood and supplementary materials.

Engineered Wood Flooring – These are real wood flooring made from a top layer of wood on a core of ply, mdf and softwood. The use of wood on the top ensures that engineered wood flooring appears genuine, while the semi-synthetic core means that you can fit them in all areas of the interior, even in wet areas (bathroom, kitchen etc) and even on top of floor heating system.

Solid Wood Flooring – These are traditional wood flooring made from 100{7f6b511118f3db1a05f160455b7bc2b69710387d1f828e7e1b6a763a6e34bbc4} solid wood such as pine, oak, walnut etc. They are perfectly suitable in most commercial settings, but for areas that are too cold or too hot. In such conditions wood will expand or contract causing the floorboard to misshape. The attraction to fit solid wood in commercial settings arises from the ability to sand and recoat the floorboard every couple of years. This is a far quicker and more affordable manner to rejuvenate the floor compared to fitting new floor.

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