What Is The Best Wood Flooring For The Lounge?

If you’re currently designing or redesigning your lounge and want to make it look great and be a perfect place for meetings with friends or family, you will most certainly need to consider the type of flooring you want to choose. You may go wild or stick to your conservative approach – all depends on your individual likes and dislikes. Yet, there are certain aspects you will need to carefully think through – and that’s why we’ve decided to write this article. The article is broken down into two parts and it will offers some advice and useful tips to help you make a decision on the type of flooring that will be ideal for your lounge. In part one, we mention the things you need to think about first and part two offers some suggestions and options that you wouldn’t probably consider yourself.

1. Things you really need to think about

Firstly, consider if your lounge has under floor heating. If so, then you definitely shouldn’t plump for solid hardwood flooring, as it is very susceptible to temperature fluctuations and can easily get damaged. In such a situation, it would be best to choose engineered wood flooring and check with your flooring manufacturer and supplier that it is thick enough to allow the heat to pass through it effectively. Whenever you consider installing hardwood flooring over UFH, it is highly advisable to follow the manufacturer’s instructions at all times, but in general 14mm boards will in most cases be appropriate.

Secondly, ask yourself if  there is any humidity in the subfloor. If you are not sure how to answer this question do invest some time and effort you will need to accurately measure it. If you want to learn how, to do it, go to our other articles which comprehensively cover this issue. And if it turns out that the humidity level in the subfloor is elevated, engineered wood flooring will be a safer bet as compared to solid wood. But anyway always do whatever you can to reduce the humidity prior to fitting the new floor.

Thirdly, think about the amount of traffic your lounge is expected to get. This consideration may influence not only your choice between solid and engineered wood flooring, but also the finish which will probably be best in your given case. If you don’t have UFH, the choice is yours – you can go either for solid or engineered hardwood flooring. In the case of expected high traffic levels in the lounge, for instance because you’ve got a big family, a few pets or your friends often come to visit, it would be more advisable to choose solid wood flooring, which can be sanded and re-finished more often within its lifetime as compared to engineered wood flooring. However, engineered wood flooring with a thick top layer, so-called lamella, will also withstand a few sandings without any difficulty. As regards the finish, undoubtedly a lacquered finish is among the options that offer the highest durability and resilience to damage.

2. Handful of suggestions for your lounge

How to create a heritage look? If that’s the look you want for your lounge and you’ve thought about making a real allusion to the past, to the look of stately homes or castles, chevron engineered wood flooring or the likes should be a perfect solution. It’s s available both in prime and select grades, then you can also choose between lacquered, unfinished and white oiled finishes. This flooring option is really stylish, chic and would form a perfect backdrop for soft stylish couches or for antique furniture. That’s a choice that won’t disappoint you.

Do you want your lounge to be full of light and airy? If you fancy a chintzy or a light and airy look for your lounge, then any of our ‘white’ finished floors will work perfectly. This whole range has everything from white oiled flooring to seriously light oak.

Do you love dark flooring and designer solutions? Black wood flooring has been immensely popular for some time now and is a great choice for your lounge provided that you fancy a dark, designer look. For instance, this black American walnut wood flooring can be coupled with whites, creams and greys to make up an astonishing monochrome look or you can also let your imagination fly and make a true statement using vivid colours and inspiring shapes. This flooring option looks amazing when supplemented with a soft fluffy rug.

Or maybe shabby chic? If you smile at the thought of a shabby chic lounge, distressed flooring is your best bet. We’ve got some very nice kinds of distressed wood flooring in our offer. Everyone will find something to match their tastes. Distressed flooring suits both modern and antique furniture and is a perfect way of making a clear style statement.