A Guide to Choosing the Right Hardwood Flooring for Your Home
When bringing your new construction home to life, an element that can heavily affect your design preferences is your hardwood flooring! Gone are the days when tile, concrete, and carpet were the primary floor options. With the rise of open floor plans, homeowners prefer to have congruent flooring throughout their common spaces. We often use hardwood flooring for each room downstairs of the home, except for the laundry room and full bathrooms. When it comes to making a decision on what kind of hardwood flooring you prefer, there are a few items to consider, such as color preferences, lifestyles, interior design palettes, budget, and more, which we’ll cover today! Let’s get to knocking!
Interior Design Palettes
When curating your new construction home, we like to take your interior design palette into consideration to see how it will pair with the hardwood you select! If your selections include warmer tones, we might suggest a hardwood that has rich honey tones to complement the rest of your space. In contrast, if you gravitate towards cooler hues, we might suggest a hardwood with neutral dark hues. We offer as much feedback as possible, while also staying true to the colors you like best!
Lifestyle Preferences
Something that homeowners forget about when selecting their hardwood floors is their lifestyle preferences. Children, pets, and profession should all be taken into consideration. For example, if you have pets who have darker hair that tend to shed often, you might find yourself selecting the hardwood flooring that is a bit darker or has distinct contrast in the grain to better hide this.
Budget
One of the most important items to consider when choosing the hardwood flooring for your home is your budget! Be realistic on what your budget is before falling in love with a hardwood selection. From there, you will have the freedom to choose from secondary or tertiary decisions on your hardwood flooring.
Hardwood Characteristics
The characteristics of your preferred hardwood are also something you should think about when making your selection! Wood species, knots, and variation throughout can provide hardwood to have a different look and feel. For example, hardwood made of hickory can lean towards a honey or warm reddish tone with more dramatic variation, while white oak can be creamy or beige with a mild, straight grain pattern. Any hardwood species can also feature cerusing, which is a finishing technique that applies a top coat of whitewash or darker wax to the open grain of the wood. This creates a two-toned look while highlighting the wood’s natural essence.
Hardwood is such a beautiful product within our homes! At Magnolia Homes, we can help you in deciding which hardwood floor is right for you depending on the items listed above.
