The Best Ways to Add Character to Your Hardwood Floors

Hardwood flooring is at the top of home improvement trends this 2023 and for many good reasons. Although they’re more well-known for their durability and longevity, hardwood floors are also visually appealing. Hardwood floors may offer unlimited choices, but customizing them to fit your interior style is also essential. In this guide, learn the best ways to add character to hardwood flooring.

Common Factors That Add Character to Hardwood Floors

Hardwood floorings are unique flooring options having naturally distinctive features that can add character to any room or space. Although most wooden floors have uniform and traditional appearances, hardwood planks have grains and patterns unique to each wood strip.

Some common factors that add character to hardwood floors are their species, grains, and hues. Every hardwood specie has well-defined characteristics that other trees don’t have. One example is between Oak and Hickory. Oak hardwood floors offer uniform grains with barely noticeable differences in planks. They’re also the industry standard for wooden floors and furniture. Hickory has clear and distinct grains throughout their planks. In addition, they’re more durable than oak due to their high Janka rating.

Natural wooden hues can also add character to hardwood floors. Some species, like white oak, pine, and ash, have pale to light-brown tones, while walnut, cherry, and maple have darker-colored planks. Different wood colors can affect the look and feel of a room. Light-colored hardwood floorings offer a lighter, airier, and more modern style. Darker hardwood floorboards provide homes with a cozier, homey, and more rustic aesthetic.

Adding Picture Frame Borders

Picture frame borders are pieces of thinner, differently colored hardwood strips installed around the edges of the hardwood floor. Their purpose is to frame the perimeter of the room’s hardwood flooring.

Picture frame borders add instant charm and individuality to the space. They bring a dramatic flair to simple hardwood floorings. In addition, they help make a statement and accentuate specific areas or furniture in the room.

Experts highly recommend that homeowners let professional hardwood flooring installers add the borders on their floors. The process of fitting and installing narrow hardwood planks to frame their entire floor is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and requires high skill levels and expertise. In addition, they know which colors and finishes work better.

Whitewashing

Whitewashing is another term for bleaching your hardwood flooring. It’s the fastest and easiest way to lighten hardwood floors due to stain damage or try something new with them. People can use white floor stains, pale-tinted sealers, or a bleach solution to whitewash their hardwood floors.

This process provides you with brighter-colored hardwood flooring without covering its grain. In addition, it keeps the hardwood’s hue light while preventing them from looking sterile. Besides an appearance change, whitewashing removes stubborn stains from your hardwood floors.

Many homes whitewash their hardwood floors to get a clean, beachy vibe. It also enhances the Scandinavian interior look that is trending in many households around the US. 

Using Wide Hardwood Planks

Installing wide hardwood planks instead of the industry standard-sized ones is one new and notable way to add more character to your hardwood floorings. Wide hardwood plank floorboards are unique and special. They reflect a higher sense of craftsmanship and wood quality. In addition, they blend well with both traditional and modern interior styles.

Wide hardwood planks help make the room feel larger and add more statement. Unlike narrow hardwood strips, they give your floorboards more detailed patterns and grains because they’re more noticeable. These set of planks also create more formal and sophisticated looks.

Going For “Rustic” with Rustic-Grades and Reclaimed Hardwood

Contrary to popular belief, the term rustic flooring doesn’t only mean rugged or country-styled hardwood floors. Hardwood floors also have rustic grades of hardwood planks. Unlike the typical hardwood flooring grades used at homes and other properties, rustic-graded hardwood has natural blemishes and knots. They also have color imperfections and graining flaws.

In addition, rustic hardwood floors can also mean reclaimed hardwood floorboards. Reclaimed hardwood floorings are naturally rustic-looking due to their origins. These planks come from old beams, floor joists, panels, and furnishings for decades and even centuries. Their years of service as furnishing materials or building components gave them uneven wooden hues, nail holes, cracks, and other imperfections. These blemishes add to their charisma and give homes a historic, well-lived feel. 

Adding Patterns by Angling Hardwood Planks Differently

Changing the angle of installing your hardwood floorboards from one room to another can add character. Putting hardwood floorings at different angles can change the tempo of every space and create a distinction between living spaces.

The angled hardwood floorboards also create unique patterns and add personality to your home’s interior. In addition, they make visually appealing breaks that give a statement and highlight specific areas of every room. 

Adding Character to Your Hardwood Floors in Austin

Hardwood floors are durable, long-lasting, beautiful, and unique additions to any home. Although they provide personality to dull-looking interiors with simple floorboards, there are better ways homeowners can add more character to their wooden floorings. These new and inventive ways can help increase your home’s value and show more of yourself.

Find a hardwood flooring expert by contacting Kelly Hardwood Floors today!