By Laura Jean Whitcomb

Hard surface wood floors — stone, ceramic tile, wood and laminate — is the flooring of choice on the first floor. Wood, in particular, has been gaining in popularity. Although carpet is still a favorite in the bedroom, hardwood flooring is quickly replacing carpet in the living room, dining room and hallways.

For families with allergies, wood floors are the best option. “Carpets are collectors and those are coming out of homes pretty rapidly,” says Daryl Warner, store manager of the Lebanon location of Lumber Liquidators, a 30-store company that specializes in hardwood flooring.

In the 1980s, the average ratio of soft surface (carpet and pad) to hard surface (wood, ceramic and stone, laminate and vinyl) sales for a flooring retailer was 80 percent to 20 percent, with vinyl much of the 20 percent. Now that ratio is nearing 50/50, with vinyl less than 10 percent.

Solid hardwood flooring shipments have increased from 78 million board feet in 1980 to 627.5 million in 2002, according to NOFMA: The Wood Flooring Manufacturers Association, the industry’s largest advocacy organization. A huge jump, and this number only accounts for oak, ash, black cherry, black walnut, beech, birch, hard maple and hickory/pecan strip flooring (no planks or parquet are included).

“The market is excellent. Manufacturers are having a hard time keeping up with demand,” says Stan Elberg, executive vice president of NOFMA. “Hardwood is the most preferred floor covering today, with ceramics/tile a close second.”
Consumers and contractors like the fact that wood is a natural product that maintains its value. “Wood can last a lifetime,” says Rusty Swindoll, assistant director of technical training with the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA), a nonprofit trade organization of nearly 3,000 wood flooring professionals. In fact, a NWFA survey of real estate agents across the United States found that 90 percent said that houses with wood flooring sell faster than houses without wood floors.

“Consumers are attracted to a wood floor. Contractors can make more money with a wood floor,” says Swindoll. “When I was installing wood flooring in Jackson, Miss., people would walk in, see the wood floors and say, ‘I like it. Let’s buy it!’”

Surprisingly, the flooring industry is no different than any other fashion industry. Although styles don’t change with the seasons, there are several trends emerging in wood flooring fashion such as exotic species, wide widths and vintage looks. Here’s what to look for in 2004.

Exotic Species:
A Luxurious Alternative

Traditional oak hardwood floors (50 percent of hardwood sold) are giving way to more exotic woods such as Brazilian cherry, maple and hickory. Homeowners are attracted to the rich grainings and colorings, and contractors like the stability of the wood.

Woodfloorshowroom.com notes that there are more than 100 species of exotic wood floors available today. Bruce Hardwood Flooring, an Armstrong company, features unique wood species Kempas, Larch, Merbau and Bangkiraias as part of the Coastal Woodlands Collection.

Wide Widths

From early colonial times, wide plank wood floors were the most efficient way to produce a suitable wood floor, according to woodplankfloors.com. As a saw was passed through a round tree, each consecutive plank was a little wider until the center was reached. The boards were “edged” to remove the bark and to straighten the edges. The end result was several different widths of planks.

Although the most common strip sold today is a 2H-inch width, 3- and 5-inch widths are becoming more popular. Frequently chosen for larger rooms, wider widths (or a combination of widths) make a more visual statement.

Character Grades

Appearance alone determines the grade of hardwood flooring. There are four basic grades:

 Clear: practically free of defects and made up of mostly heartwood
 Select: almost clear but contains more of the natural characteristics such as knots and color variations
 #1 common: contains prominent variations in coloration and varying grain patterns
 #2 common: contains variations of product and manufacturing imperfections. This grade is suitable for homes and general utility use, or where character marks and contrasting appearance is desired.

Woods with strong graining and knotting patterns, such as hickory, are back in style. “People are getting back to nature. Knots provide that ‘down home’ look,” says Warner.

Swindoll agrees. “People want more knots, more bark pockets, more sap coloring. Instead of select red oak or white oak, which provides a uniform look, a popular choice is a mix of #1 and #2 common to get different size knots and more bark pockets. This provides more of the character of wood — what wood really is.”

Vintage Floors

Wood floors are beautiful even when worn. In fact, rustic, weathered and antique looks — floors that recreate the sculptured character and patina of aged wood — are on the rise. Surfaces, the annual trade show of The World Floor Covering Association, noted the popularity of weathering techniques at their 2003 event. Some wood manufacturers hand bevel and distress individual planks, then finish them to give the appearance of a century old wood floor.

If you want the real thing, many old wood ships, warehouses, barns and other structures often find a second life in wood flooring. Carlisle Restoration Lumber in Stoddard, N.H., and Denver, Colo., offers Antique Heart Pine recovered from a variety of old structures, such as factories and textile mills in New England and along the East Coast. Beams are selectively resawed to create a variety of grades.

Custom Finishes

According to Rick Brian, author of the Hardwood Flooring Report, prefinished hardwood floors have improved significantly from the early stain-and-wax versions.

“In the 1950s, consumers generally had three prefinished color choices — light, medium or dark stains — and that was about it!” he says. “With the mid-1980s advent of no-wax, UV-cured polyurethane floors, more and more prefinished color choices were introduced to the marketplace. This development helped prefinished wood floors make the huge transition from commodity floor covering to a floor fashion product.”

Prefinished products are simple to choose and easy to install. “With prefinished coatings added at the factory, people don’t have to worry about sanding and mess,” says Warner.

But some customers are opting for custom floors, especially if they need that perfect shade of ecru for their living room. “A site finish means that the product is installed and sanded on site,” says Swindoll. “And the customer picks out the stain and polyurethane.”

Elements of Design

The NWFA notes new patterns, such as a checkerboard design, as well as new edge and end treatments that use different species and grades of wood in one floor. This rise in mixed media has also led to design elements such as medallions in the center of a room or border of contrasting color used as a transition from room to room.

“Trends are changing all the time: borders, round edges, different patterns around the walls, medallions,” says NWFA’s Swindoll. But, says Lumber Liquidator’s Warner, “it really comes down to customer preferences: how the wood floor matches their color scheme.”