Home Flooring Guide

Oak hardwood flooring is one of the most beautiful and elegant interior decorating steps you can take to make your house a wonderful place for family and guests alike.  Hardwood floors are so popular because they combine sophistication and elegance with a warm and relaxed atmosphere that is perfect for a night of fun with family or for a formal dinner party as well.  Oak laminate has become a popular way to get that great look and feel of a real hardwood floor but to do so at a more reasonable cost while getting a floor that is just as durable and beautiful as pure hardwood flooring.

It’s a good thing to know what to look for in oak laminate flooring when you start to plan the installation of your new floor.  It pays to know a little bit about this kind of flooring in advance so you know both the good things to anticipate and the challenges to anticipate when you set out to achieve that classic look of oak hardwood flooring.

Getting Past the Price Tag

Hardwood floors are by nature more expensive than laying down a linoleum floor or other kinds of flooring.  That investment is one reason that the rich look of an oak laminate floor creates an atmosphere of gentle elegance for your guests.  When people walk into your home and see those oak floors, the effect is like seeing a Lexus in the driveway or fine art on the walls.  It sends a message of sophistication and success.

It is easy to shy away from oak hardwood floors because of the cost involved in having such an expensive type of flooring installed.  There are some ways to justify the cost to yourself or to your bank if you finance the installation.  The most obvious is the increase in the value of your home when you sell it.  Those hardwood floors will escalate the value of your home immediately when they are installed.  That is a hard value return on investment that can result in many thousands of dollars of increased value.  It is very likely that this justification alone is sufficient to more than pay for the costs of the flooring.

The other value is in the quality of life both for family and for friends or business associates.  Many big money deals have been struck over cocktails in a room with hardwood flooring.  If you install the flooring in your den or living room, business gatherings you have there will very often come out in your favor.  In that light, you can consider the installation of hardwood floors as a solid business investment.

The Advantage of Going Laminate

If you have selected oak laminate flooring, you have made a savvy choice that will also impact that high price tag.  Laminate flooring is almost always less expensive than 100% hardwood flooring.  But you and your family may be the only ones that will ever know that those beautiful floors are a laminate product.  Hardwood laminates are almost impossible to distinguish form pure hardwood and they have all of the durability and beauty that you are looking for from hardwood flooring.  It is an outstanding option that gives you all of the advantages of pure hardwood flooring with that reduced price tag that can help you do the project now rather than in a few years.

TLC of an Oak Hardwood Floor

Whether you go with laminate or a pure hardwood flooring, there is some tender loving care you should plan on making part of your lifestyle so your floor stays great looking and undamaged for years to come.  Wood flooring is more easily damaged than a synthetic or tile floor so you should limit the activities in the rooms where your oak hardwood floor is installed so there is less of a chance of causing scratches or gouges in the flooring.

Cleaning a hardwood floor is a different process than cleaning a linoleum floor.  You should do your homework to buy floor cleaning agents that are made for your specific floor.  It is important not to use harsh chemical cleaning agents on your new floors and to limit how long your floor is exposed to fluids.  Your flooring supplier and installer can help you with the learning curve so you become an expert caregiver for your new floor.  It’s a worthwhile investment because when you can keep that beautiful floor looking great, it will become a valuable part of your lifestyle and enhance your home life as well as those times when you entertain so positively that you will never want to live in a home without hardwood flooring again.