Hardwood Flooring Texture

Engineered and solid wood floors are available in a wide range of surface textures but which one is right for you?  This is our guide to the top Hardwood Flooring Textures with examples from our online catalogue.

Considering the importance of floor texture is essential to the design and ambience of a room. How a floor looks is a big part of interior design but how it feels can be just as essential to creating a perfect space.  Textured hardwood floors can added a distinctive look and feel that will emphasise the style that you are looking to achieve.

SMOOTH WOOD FLOORING

This is a perfect choice for sophisticated and modern rooms where elegance and uniformity are essential.  The surface of the wooden floor is level and even without ridges or surface irregularities.  The grain is typically unvarying and is often produced from species with a low sap content to ensure a finish that is beautifully smooth.  Floors finished with this texture can be polished to a high sheen if required.  They are considered to be the easiest to clean but will show up wear and tear if not cared for properly.  These floors tend to work best as an elegant stage to display the space and furnishings within a room.

For more about smooth flooring explore our Metro Range

BRUSHED HARDWOOD FLOORING TEXTURE

Wooden floors that have been textured in this way can vary in smoothness from subtle to distinctive.  Real wood is comprised of different densities.  In older floors, the softer wood was worn away by years of cleaning and brushing resulting in a finely ridged character surface that has become a much sought after appearance.  Today craftsmen use special flooring brushes to carefully recreate this appearance by deliberately removing the softer wood to recreate the appearance of naturally worn flooring.  The more a floor has been treated this way the more pronounced the ridges in the wood.  Brushed floors that have then been treated with oil are considered some of the most natural but still elegant of the flooring texture options.

For more about smooth flooring explore our County Oiled Range

HAND SCRAPED AND WAVE SCRAPED HARDWOOD FLOORING TEXTURE

Hand scraped floors are created by craftsmen who take planks and meticulously scrape them to create the impression of a floor that has already seen many years of use. There are various techniques that can be used from scraping along the grain to using circular patterns across the grain known as wave scraping. Craftsmen and machines have become so adept at this process that even experts can be convinced that a new floor is actually already decades if not centuries old.  This type of texture is ideal for buildings where a modern floor would look out of place and they are widely used for restorations or themed rooms.  Hand scraping is one of the oldest woodworking techniques and was originally used to smooth rough planks of wood and actually make the floor look smoother.  Hand scraped wooden floors naturally age a room and hint at a forgotten heritage and that they have seen many years of use.

For more about smooth flooring explore our Cotswold – Hand scraped & Distressed Range

SAWN WOOD FLOORING TEXTURE

When lumber is first cut at the mill into planks, the saws often leave a distinctive pattern.  These markings have become popular features of character floors and suggest a natural and unfinished origin.  Band Sawn, Cross Sawn or Hand Cut Engineered Oak Flooring replicates these saw patterns on the surface of the wood.  Our supplier mills use exacting band saws to create the surface texture.  The wood is then treated with oils to lock in the beauty of the design.

DISTRESSED HARDWOOD FLOORING TEXTURE

If you are looking to create an industrial or significantly vintage appearance then Distressed Wood Flooring is the perfect choice for you.  Distressed wood flooring has been through a texturing process designed to make it look as if it has already seen many years of intensive wear.  Methods for creating this texture include tumbling the wood in drum machines that contain a variety of hard objects designed to create a pattern of wear and tear including indentations, scratches, and corner rounding. Many of these planks are then hand finished to emphasise natural features in the wood grain.  Well-made Distressed wooden floors are now so exact that they often fool even the experts.   This texture is ideal for rustic rooms and historic buildings where a modern floor would look completely out of place.

For more about smooth flooring explore our Designer – Oiled, Stained & Distressed Options

If you would like to find out more about the textures available for wooden floor please contact us for advice.

Maples & Birch are committed to providing quality engineered hardwood floors and to achieve this we ensure that we choose producers and mills that are innovative and who ensure environmentally friendly ways of producing our flooring range.

It’s always best to work with one of our experts for the installation process to ensure that all the planks will be perfectly arranged and set in a symmetrical manner that will enhance the overall look of your interior.

Visit our catalogue pages to see the full range available or for more information and a free consultation please contact the Sales Team at: 0333 533 3330