How to Choose The Right Wood Flooring For Dining Rooms?

If you’ve got a dining room re-flooring project in mind, you’re going to have a multitude of various options to consider and choose from. These days, carpets are not a very popular reason among home-owners. And that’s due to various reasons, which include considerations related to maintenance and health. However, wood flooring is very likely to be on your short list, especially when you think about your dining room. Read on to learn about our top tips and useful pieces of advice as regards flooring options that will look great in a dining room.

But, let’s first you will need to carefully think about a number of aspects, which will allow you to make all the good choices:

1. Is the room or your subfloor exposed to a lot of moisture? Are there large humidity or temperature fluctuations in your dining room? Do you expect them in the future?

2. Is there a lot of direct sunlight in your dining room?

3. Is there under floor heating installed there?

If the humidity level in your room is or is expected to be elevated, always go for engineered wood flooring. But, it’s anyway a good idea to invest in bringing down the humidity or reducing the risk of humidity to a minimum, before fitting a new floor.

Moreover, if there is under floor heating in the dining room, engineered wood flooring will be a recommended option, as solid wood flooring doesn’t withstand significant temperature fluctuations triggered by the direct heat coming from the under floor heating system. When a natural product, such as solid wood is exposed to such large changes in ambient temperatures, it gets damaged, shows signs of warping and bowing, due to the processes of expansion and contraction it undergoes. That’s why engineered wood flooring is actually the only viable option for fitting over under floor heating. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t think that the need to choose an engineered wood floor and not solid wood limits you, as today there is a vast choice of engineered flooring options.

The next thing you need to pay attention to is whether the dining room is exposed to a lot of direct sunlight. If so, do think about investing in a flooring option whose finish has a UV filter, or applying a UV filter after the floor has been installed. In this ways, you will mitigate the risk of the colour fading with the light.

If you’ve already considered all the above aspects, now is the time to start the fun part of choosing the new dining room flooring. Make a choice between solid or engineered wood flooring, provided that your dining room doesn’t fall into any of the two categories mentioned above.

Then, pick the colour you desire to achieve, as it will most probably predetermine the species of wood you’ll opt for. If you’re searching for a certain natural colour of wood, this decision will define the species which will best suit your taste. For instance, if you’re fond of beige or honey shades, then you’ll probably lean towards oak. But, if you’re a naturally dark wood appeals to you more, then your preferred options will include wenge, walnut and the likes. However, the market abounds in some great dark wood options which have undergone treatment to get a darker look than their natural one. Don’t eliminate them right away, because of their convincingly natural look – they can make a true style statement in any dining room.

The majority of dining rooms are not exposed to excessive traffic and that’s good news as regards your choice of finish. You definitely still can plump for a resistant and hardwearing lacquer finish for the dining room, but, provided that the amount of traffic is considerably low, you won’t have to choose this option. Focus also on the furnishings that will stand in your dining room – you may want to choose a nice, aged-looking floor, to give the interior some historical appeal and drama. As an alternative, you can embrace a light and airy white washed floor, which will make any dark interiors light and full of life and will complement any cutting-edge or bohemian-style dining furnishings.

Thinking about furnishings and their size, do take into consideration the size of your dining room. Having said that, you may have a considerably small dining room, take a decision to put large table and chairs there, leaving little or no space for anything else – the choice is yours. As far as the flooring is concerned, you may incline, when choosing the width of the boards, to take on a more traditional approach. Traditionally, narrow boards are fitted in small interiors, while wider boards are installed only in large rooms.

A modern approach defies the tradition, claiming that you can choose the width of board which you think will look best in your dining room. Very wide boards can look amazing in a tiny dining room, especially with oversized or chunky furnishings. But, if the furnishings are all antique or period pieces, it might be the best idea to choose a chevron board or a narrow to medium width board, which will make the classic styling look even better.