Wood Flooring choices

Thank you Santa!

One of my Christmas presents from my husband is hardwood flooring for our family room.  I was ecstatic since I have wanted to replace the carpet for ages.  

When I went to pick up the boxes of flooring at Lumber Liquidators for our son to install for us (one of my son's presents to me- my lucky year!) I thought this information might be helpful to others besides me.  We have solid oak flooring in the kitchen, breakfast room and foyer of our ranch style home.  In our basement we installed Berber carpet 20 years ago  when we moved in (which was all the rage then), and had several water pipe breaks and subsequently replaced the carpet. The base floor is concrete so we chose a floating wood laminate floor over a plastic moisture barrier, which has been the best floor for the former kids play area and now our design office.   I wish I had seen this chart (at Lumber Liquidators) sooner.  Of course someone will sell you carpet to put on top of concrete! 

Here are the properties of wood flooring you should know:

100% hardwood milled from lumber-

comes unfinished to stain yourself or pre-finished to avoid that step-

can be sanded and refinished several times

 real hardwood layers with a plywood or MDF backing-

extremely stable which means it can take on wood's natural movement in high moisture areas 

                                    a fiberboard core with a decorative paper on it-
                                         comes in an array of colors, grades or 
                                         even handscraped for that rustic look-
                                          very durable and scratch resistant

produced from recycled materials or 'virgin' vinyl-

can be installed anywhere-

water resistant-

easy installation, or peel-and-stick application

I'll keep you posted on the progress of this room- I cannot wait to makeover our family room this winter....then the kitchen!