Wood Flooring for High End Interiors

What Is The Best  Flooring For A Luxury House?

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In luxury homes you will often find expensive carpets, high quality real wood floors, natural stone and premium luxury vinyl tile flooring. All of which have their own appeal and advantages.

Regardless of budget most people choose to have carpet in their bedrooms due to the comfort provided when without shoes or socks. We want the most comfortable flooring in our most comfortable rooms.

High quality real wood flooring offers a natural warm luxury that no other floor type can currently match. We find luxury in natural products and real wood is a brilliant example of this.

Natural stone flooring is often found in the kitchen areas of expensive homes as it won’t get damaged by moisture and spillages and is fairly easy to clean. Natural stone offers a similar natural luxury as real wood but with a harder and colder surface.

Luxury vinyl tile flooring is currently unbeatable when it comes to usability. It’s completely waterproof, it replicates real wood and real stone surprisingly well with patterns and textured surfaces, and it’s available in unlimited designs because it’s man-made.

Expensive and custom products exist for all of these floor types. And all are excellent choices for the most luxurious and expensive homes.

One of the best rooms for real wood flooring is living rooms. When shopping for wooden flooring design for living room areas you are usually better off with medium to dark colours of natural wood.

What Is High-End Wood Flooring?

High end wood flooring differs from cost effective wood flooring in that the materials used are less available and the manufacturing process is more intricate and time consuming.

One aspect of high end wood flooring is the thickness and wear layer. The thicker the flooring the more material has been used. Engineered wood flooring has a top layer of real wood called the wear layer. The thicker the wear layer the more times the floor can be sanded down and renewed.

Another feature is the grade of the wood. The grade with the least amount of knots, blemishes and variation is Prime grade, also known as AB grade. As manufacturers can only use wood that looks similar, there is less suitable material available.

Popular patterns such as herringbone and chevron are also more time consuming to create than standard straight plank floors which increases the cost. Time costs money.

Even though Prime wood is the highest grade, there are still high end rustic wood floors as the appearance simply offers a different style. In this case time and effort will be spent on high quality material and making the design creating the desired appearance.

Often we can break down the term high end to it consisting of premium materials used to create an attractive and individual product.

What Is The Best Wood Flooring For The Money?

If you are looking for a cost effective option you would do well to shop for engineered wood flooring in straight plank format. This is the simplest style of wood flooring to make. And the majority of each plank is man-made material rather than natural wood which is more expensive.

Engineered wood flooring is also available with glue free click together planks and can be installed over underlay. This type of installation is the easiest of all variations of real wood flooring. Which means you can install it yourself without paying a professional.

It will increase the cost of the flooring but for a little more money you could also have a style such as herringbone or chevron. The price difference for the same spec engineered wood flooring would be another few pounds per square meter. You may also need to pay a professional for the install.  

Engineered wood flooring is usually the best wood flooring for high end interiors because everything you can see and touch is real wood plus it’s more stable with temperature and moisture than solid wood.

Wood flooring for high end interiors cost can be anywhere from around £50 m2 to around £300 m2. As with most industries people can essentially pay as much as they are willing to for unique products.

What Is The Best Flooring That Looks Like Wood?

The two best real wood imitation floor types are vinyl and laminate. Both do a good job of imitating wood flooring and are less expensive.  

Vinyl;

There are wood imitation products in both sheet vinyl and luxury vinyl tile (LVT) formats. Sheet vinyl is cheaper but doesn’t look or feel anywhere as good as the LVT versions.

LVT flooring is available with textured surfaces that are designed to replicate the grain of real wood. The effect of this on high quality LVT floors can be surprisingly realistic.

Laminate;

Although LVT has taken the lion’s share of the market in recent years, laminate flooring still has its place. It’s less expensive than LVT and a little more durable unless you get it wet. It is also available with textured surfaces like high end LVT.

People tend not to use laminate wood flooring for high end interiors because it looks and feels cheaper than real wood flooring.

Overall LVT is currently the better option due to the fact that it’s fully waterproof, slightly softer and quieter to walk on.

What Wood Floors Don’t Go Out Of Style?

The most future proof wood floors are the most natural looking ones. The more natural the appearance the less likely it will start to look dated as the years go by. Natural wood comes from trees, and trees don’t go out of style!

Real wood flooring is excellent at being timeless and has the added benefit of being able to be fully renewed. This is done by sanding the surface of the floor to reveal fresh wood, then refinish the surface with oil or lacquer.

Real stone flooring is another flooring material that remains in style for decades. The main downsides to stone flooring is it’s hard and cold and cannot be refinished like wood.

Real wood is the king of long lasting staying in style flooring for homes.