hARD-WAX

Hard-waxed surfaces offer perhaps the most robust finish on a real-wood floor. It is rich in texture and emphasizes the organic grainy feel of the wood. It pairs particularly well with distressed flooring like the one pictured, the cracks and knots become very well contoured under the hand.

It also offers a splendid visual texture and the ridges and bumps cast shadows as the light moves across them giving a unique look. They really add a splash of nature to the home.

Lacquered

Lacquered floors give a clean, fresh, polished look to a floor. The surface is left smooth due to more layers of product being soaked into the grain and setting prior being factory finished. The result is a flat smooth top-coat that throws a lot of natural light back into the room for a lovely airy, modern look.

This also provides a better seal against any spillages that may occur on the product for a practical edge.

The UV setting process keeps the finish on the board nicely.

Brushed and Oiled

The classic, the timeless. This is what is in most people’s mind when they say the words “real-wood flooring”.

The oil simply coats the grain of the wood in a protective layer whilst preserving the texture so as to give the most authentic feel possible.

It can sit on top of (or be mixed into) a stain, as pictured.

A major improvement in this finish is the UV process as it vastly hardens the oil so it doe not rub off like the older-style hand oiled floors.

Invisible Oiled

This is an oil with a very low amount of pigmentation meaning the overall color is a lot more like the wood is in it’s natural form.

This is very much on trend with the neutral and pastel tones being used to create a relaxing aura in contemporary interior design.

It also makes life a lot easier when it comes to matching other elements of the project and allows for more complicated patterns like parquet and herringbone to be fitted without the overall look being busy to the eye.

Hand-scraped

The hand-scraped floors are topped with layers of real-wood that are peeled by hand from the timber to give a unique ripple effect with a lush textured finish.

The ripples create a very attractive effect when the light catches the undulations bringing a wonderful mix of shadow and highlight across the board like smooth waves.

There is something very special about the way this board comes together and it is a wonderful way to add a little bit of charm to a floor if a normal straight board is too plain for your tastes.

The distinction between these two types of floor covering is something we often find ourselves discussing so we thought it prudent to outline the main factors that differentiate the two.

The simpler of the two to explain is the solid wood (pictured on the bottom). This is the traditional way of manufacturing real-wood flooring. A board of solid-wood shaped from a single piece of timber (with the odd exception of finger-jointed boards), sometimes in tongue and groove, sometimes in click. But the main thing to note is that the same timber species is present throughout the whole board. Whether Oak or Walnut you know that is you cut through the board that is all there is, this is in contrast to engineered.

Engineered wood floors have your roust timber one the surface, so once fitted are indistinguishable from solid-wood. The difference is in the core, here you find soft-woods like pine, poplar and eucalyptus arranged, on the better quality boards in layers, though sometimes they are found as simple blocks. The multi-layered boards find the sheets laid cross-grain for more overall stability.

These boards are less prone to cupping and bowing under temperature fluctuation and were in-fact first manufactured as an industry response to the advent of underfloor-heating.

They are also notably cheaper and far more environmentally friendly! It is no surprise then that the market trends strongly shift towards engineered-wood.