by Eddy Laboy | Oct 13, 2015 | Engineered Hardwood Flooring, Hardwood Flooring, Solid Hardwood Floors
Engineered hardwood floors are now a common flooring alternative due to its stability and the ability to be sanded down several times like solid wood floors. Manufactured with multiple layers of plywood or a sandwich of softwood and hardwood base with real hardwood on top, engineered hard wood floors is renowned to virtually withstand various levels of humidity without swelling or shrinking, making it an ideal flooring type to be installed on radiant sub-floors. These floors can come prefinished or not, which gives the homeowners or installers a choice for faster, no hustle and bustle installation. Unless your wood floor has been refinished at least twice before, waxing engineered hardwood floors is not the best method to maintain its luster. Take note that waxing old hardwood floors is a big mistake when the floor has polyurethane or urethane finish. For those who still have old hardwood floors with traditional coating, here are steps on how to wax hardwood floors. Solid Paste Wax Get rid of dust and tracked in dirt by sweeping the floor or vacuuming. Using a damped rag, apply a restoring finish on the floor to bring out the color of the hardwood floor and to help restore some of its beauty. Damping the rag prevents it from absorbing much wax. Start applying the restoring finish from a corner, working your way out. Let it sit and dry for an hour to be thoroughly dried. Dip another rag or old shirt in paste wax. Apply the wax evenly in a light layer. Doing so prevents just piling up a chunk of wax on the floor. Focus on...
by Eddy Laboy | Oct 2, 2015 | DuChateau flooring, Engineered Hardwood Flooring, Hardwood Flooring
DuChateau floors is one of the best floors in residential and commercial buildings because of their durability, stability and beauty. These are antique reproductions of hard wax-oiled wide plank and engineered hardwood floors, which were developed in Holland. These floors are designed to re-create the time-worn yet beautifully elegant true antique floors, which are characterized by their unparalleled character and longevity. But Duchateau floors require proper maintenance measures to preserve their durability, longevity and beauty for generations to come. Keep in mind that the hard wax oil applied on its surface can gradually be stripped away over time so its beauty fades, too. This can be prevented by applying the following regular maintenance measures. Use the right cleaning product You should never ever use alcohol-based cleaning products on DuChateau floors because these will strip away the hard wax oil; alcohol is a drying agent that breaks down the oils and waxes on the floor. You should always use the DuChateau Premium Floor Cleaner & Protectant as it is the only approved floor cleaning product for Duchateau floors. Daily cleaning You must also avoid using a vacuum cleaner with a beater brush as it can damage (i.e., scratch) the DuChateau floors. While the scratches may be unnoticeable at first, over time the scratches will become visible until the beauty of the DuChateau floors is compromised. Instead, you can use a vacuum cleaner with a hardwood floor attachment for daily cleaning of the DuCchateau floors or a manual sweep. Weekly or bi-weekly cleaning Every week or every other week, you can conduct a deeper cleaning of your DuChateau floors. Again, the...
by Eddy Laboy | Jul 3, 2015 | Engineered Hardwood Flooring, Mirage Flooring, Solid Hardwood Floors
Investing in a hardwood floor is a very important decision to make. Before you go about purchasing materials, you should make sure that the type of floor that you choose would meet your needs perfectly. Choosing a hardwood floor should be done carefully since you can’t simply change it as easily as you can change your furniture. Mirage is a very popular brand of hardwood floors that has been used in improving the look of homes for a very long time now. There are a lot of Mirage flooring design ideas that you can use to improve your home. However, whatever design you choose, you should consider these following: Mirage Flooring Color Hardwood flooring is more of a decorative element of the home. Mirage flooring comes in a wide variety of colors to choose from. It is important that you choose a color that will blend well with the over-all look of your home. Mirage Flooring Species Mirage also offers a variety of hardwood species to choose from. Each species differs in texture, color and grain to suit every homeowner’s preference. The more popular and in demand species are the oak and maple however, exotic species such as mahogany and tigerwood are becoming more and more popular. Mirage Flooring Glossiness Another thing to consider is the wood’s glossiness. Mirage flooring comes in three gloss classification namely: Semi-Gloss, and Cashmere (matte). Choosing the more glossy wood will give your floor a shiny look. However, the glossier the floor is, the more it will amplify any scratches and dents that your floor may have. Mirage Flooring Grade The grade of hardwood...
by Eddy Laboy | Jul 2, 2015 | Engineered Hardwood Flooring, Solid Hardwood Floors
Having wooden floors at your home not only gives it a warm and classy look, but also significantly increases the value of your home. However, installing solid hardwood floors may be a very expensive undertaking. Fortunately, you can have that wooden floor look that you always wanted for your home without having to pay expensively for it. You can choose the engineered wood flooring instead. Engineered flooring is made up of manufactured wood layers that are topped off with a hardwood veneer. The middle layers and the bottom layers are designed to prevent the floors from warping or buckling. A homeowner who wants to redo his home’s flooring must choose the engineered flooring based on both aesthetics and durability. Here are some features to consider. Finish Flooring Engineered flooring comes in either pre-finished or unfinished. You can choose different types of stain colors when you choose the pre-finished boards. On the other hand, if you choose the unfinished boards, you get to have control on what to color your flooring after you installed them. However, you will have to do extra work in staining and finishing these types of floorboards. Floor Area Engineered flooring planks come in lengths ranging from 12 inches to 49 inches. Their widths will also vary. If you are planning to buy the engineered wood flooring, make sure that you compute first the area that you want to cover so that you will have an estimate on the number of boards that you will get. It is advisable to purchase an extra five to 10 % of what you actually need to be used as...
by Eddy Laboy | Jun 29, 2015 | Bamboo Flooring, Cork Flooring, Engineered Hardwood Flooring, Solid Hardwood Floors
In today’s society, being environmentally-friendly is becoming more and more popular. Most of the largest manufacturers are joining in the bandwagon by producing food and other products that are safe to the environment. Even manufacturers of building materials are joining in and are coming up with eco-friendly products such as their eco-friendly hardwood floors. Most products that are categorized as “eco-friendly” are valued at a premium price because they serve people’s needs as well as the needs of the earth. Although more expensive than most solid hardwood floors, these eco-friendly hardwood floors are gaining popularity. Here are a few eco-friendly hardwood floors out in the market today. Hardwood floors Because of the demand for wood materials and hardwood flooring, the rainforest is disappearing at a rate of 100 acres per minute. With this rate, the rainforest will disappear in the next two generations. Although hardwood flooring still needs to cut down trees, selective cutting has been implemented by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) that only allows certified wood to be cut down and to be processed into hardwood flooring materials. Cork Floors Although new to the hardwood flooring industry, cork is gaining popularity because of its being environmentally-friendly. Cork is harvested from the barks of cork oak trees without having to cut the tree down. This means that the barks of the trees will eventually grow back and cork can be harvested from them again every three years, making the trees a renewable source of hardwood flooring materials. Cork materials can also be recycled adding to their eco-friendly qualities. As a flooring material, cork is said to contain anti-microbial...
by Eddy Laboy | Jun 24, 2015 | Engineered Hardwood Flooring, Kahrs Flooring
Kahrs flooring, one of Europe’s leading manufacturer of wood floors offers engineered hardwood flooring in various selections. Nowadays, engineered hardwood flooring is commonly used globally in wood flooring industry, especially in New York City. How is engineered hardwood flooring manufactured? Engineered hardwood flooring is composed of multiple fine layers of real hardwood adhered collectively on top of a core using cross-grain configuration. The interior core can be made of a hardwood and/or soft plywood that integrate the tongue and groove structure. The upper layer of engineered hardwood flooring can come from various species, exotic or domestic. Engineered hardwood flooring can be installed by gluing it directly on or below grade or floating on a subfloor. It can be basically installed on any grade level. Each plank of engineered hardwood flooring can range in width from three to five inches and up to 48 inches long or more.Engineered wood floors can be manufactured into two ways such as sliced cut veneer and rotary cut. Sliced cut veneer employs sawing the hardwood wear layer like a regular lumber. It is through this method that results to the original look of wood and a better-quality graining. On the other hand, rotary cut peels off the veneer hardwood layer from the timber, resulting in a remarkable wilder graining. How stable is engineered hardwood flooring? What makes engineered hardwood flooring better than solid hardwood flooring is its higher level of stability. The cross-grain structure of the multiple layers results to a better hold of each grain in opposite directions. Moreover, Kahrs engineered hardwood flooring is resistant to expansion and shrinkage, making it an ideal...
