Light vs. Dark Hardwood Flooring: Choosing the Best Floor For Your Home

Picking the perfect hardwood flooring for your home can be a challenging endeavor. While hardwood floors are versatile, choosing between light and dark hardwoods will help you enjoy more benefits over time. Not many homeowners consider the general tone of their wooden flooring and often buy the wrong one. Stains work well to help you fit your floor to the rest of the interior, but natural wood colors are different. Get to know the factors you need to consider when purchasing light and dark hardwood floorings in this quick guide.

Shopping for New Hardwood Floors

When you’re shopping for new hardwood floors, making a checklist of what you want can help narrow down your choices. Doing it will also help hasten the shopping stage and avoid doubts. Identifying whether you’ll go dark or light is the first step.

Hardwood floors are adaptable, sustainable, and worthwhile investments, and figuring out the tone of planks to use can add more value and beauty. But for first-time remodelers, choosing between the two can be overwhelming. Deciding between light and dark hardwood floors is easier if you have a clear idea of their differences, unique qualities, and benefits. 

Dust and Dirt Buildup

Hardwood floors don’t trap or stick to dirt and dust, making them easier to clean, unlike other flooring options. While one of their selling points is little to no maintenance, routine cleaning and upkeep of your hardwood flooring are necessary to ensure their longevity. Without a regular cleaning schedule, dirt and dust buildup accumulates fast and unevenly in different areas of your floor.

Although having a routine cleaning schedule is essential, doing them in longer gaps can affect dirt buildup. In addition, your lifestyle is another consideration you need to check when choosing which hardwood suits you best. When you combine these factors, the color of your floors becomes critical.

Once the floors get dusty, your floorboards either highlight or hide dirt, footprints, scratches, dents, and stains. But, if you don't have the time and a concrete plan for cleaning your hardwood floors 24/7, choosing between light and dark hardwood flooring is essential.

Light hardwood floors are better at hiding household dust, as most dust is naturally light-colored. Dust bunnies blend well into your flooring and become less visible. It also works with your pet’s fur unless you own dark-furred ones.

Scratches and scuffs are faster and easier to hide if you install light hardwood flooring. The lightness allows the graining and gouges to blend well with each other.

Dark hardwood floors are the exact opposite. Dust bunnies provide an unpleasant, contrasting look to your flooring unless your indoor dust takes the form of soot or coal. They disrupt the flow of the room and make it look dirtier.

The distinct upside of using dark hardwood planks is their ability to hide installation errors. Unlike light hardwood flooring, floor gaps and cupping issues aren’t visible enough to destroy the overall look of the room.

How They Affect the Room’s Size

Hardwood flooring colors can affect the size and scale of the room you’ll be installing the floors. Floor darkness and lightness are essential to achieve specific interior designs. Cozy dens and open-concept living and dining areas use different hardwood tones to achieve their desired look.

Light hardwood floors are the best option for small to medium sized rooms with low ceilings. The brightness of the floorboards opens up the room and bounces natural light that enters the space. Due to this, they create an illusion of a bigger area.

Dark hardwood floors work well in open-concept designs because it adds a cozy, warm feeling to your home. Light hardwood floors make the space look empty and cold. When you have a home with an open space design, high ceilings, and tall windows, using dark hardwood shrinks the area and turns them into a comfortable, tiny living space with a sense of warmth and intimacy.

Design Aesthetic

Different interior styles have specific hardwood colors that will fit their décor. Your home’s style and personal decorating preference should influence how you choose your floor’s color.

Light-colored hardwood floorings aren’t the best option if you have light-toned furnishing. The light aesthetic is overwhelming, and instead of simple elegance, you’ll have a monochromatic mess of an interior. The right way of using light hardwood flooring is in contemporary and modern styles. Industrial, mid-Century Modern, and Scandinavian home aesthetics use neutral palettes that pair well with light hardwood floorboards.

Dark-colored hardwood floorings lean toward traditional styles like French Country and American Colonial. In addition, Asian and Indian home aesthetics blend with dark hardwood and enhances the personality of each décor and piece of furniture. Homeowners who want to play with contrasting colors can also use dark hardwood floorings to avoid monochromatic tones around their space.

Choosing Your Floors With the Best Hardwood Floor Installation Services in Austin, TX

Choosing between light and dark hardwood flooring bears more significance than many homeowners think. Between the two tones, picking one ensures your home can enjoy the benefits of hardwood floors while staying true to your preferred aesthetic. Knowing how they differ from each other offers homeowners a faster and easier way to narrow down their choices.

Install the hardwood flooring of your dreams with Kelly Hardwood Floors today!