If you are passionate about style in long and wide plank floors then InternetLumber can help you design the floor of your dreams.
CUSTOM DESIGNED HARDWOOD FLOORING – THE FOUNDATION OF A UNIQUE AND BEAUTIFUL HOME
Hardwood flooring is truly the foundation of the interior design of any home and as such, it is important that the hardwood flooring buyer considers how minor differences between the many styles of hardwood floors can create a major and unique fashion statement about your home. We understand and share your excitement about the possibilities of having a truly custom home formed around the beauty of hardwood floors, and the incredible variety of species, widths, lengths, finishes, and construction now available.
The plethora of hardwood flooring options currently available has brought its own challenges to our industry, one that has historically been averse to change. The sheer number of options makes it challenging to any local retailer to adequately present, and train their staff on all of the available options as well as be able to obtain products in a reasonable timeframe.
In this environment InternetLumber has chosen to operate as a value leader in custom wood flooring. We are passionate about wood, both domestic US and exotic imports. Actually you may find this odd but we love wood and that is why we are in this business! Because we love wood we are very interested in using only wood that is sustainably harvested. Also we do not strive to provide the lowest priced flooring, only flooring that will make you proud for many years. However we believe you will find our prices to be very competitive. Our focus in flooring as well as our complimentary experience in raw lumber (for the cabinetry and furniture industries) and solid wood millwork is to bring custom capabilities to our clients at a price they can truly afford and in a timeframe that will leave others wondering how we can do what we do. We want to be part of building your dream floor and unique millwork.
We have chosen not to represent dozens of mass market brands. For solid flooring and matching millwork we focus our efforts primarily around one manufacturer, Canterbury Wood Floors and their millwork division. Canterbury is as passionate about wood as we are and their focus, like ours, is on customizing flooring and millwork to match their customers’ style. We are proud of the fact that while we are the exclusive authorized Internet distributor for Canterbury, we have none of the warranty challenges associated with other e-Commerce flooring dealers who are forced to work the system to sell the major brands who strictly prohibit online sales. For engineered flooring product we have also chosen to limit our suppliers to one which only provides the premier thick veneer products.
Here are some of the key things our sales consultants will talk you through when you call. We also try to cover all of this information in our product descriptions although it is not always possible. In the following article we discuss in detail the aspects of custom wood flooring design and how they impact the unique statement that is your home:
Species; Grades; Length; Width; Surface treatment; Finishes; Construction.
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DESIGN/STYLE CONSIDERATIONS
Species -
Your selection of wood specie will provide the foundation for most of the other decisions you make as this will open up or limit the options you have. Specie changes not just the color, but the grain and the character. Each of these is an important design concept. We strongly feel that in most cases the color requirements of the project should be matched to the species, when this is not possible then stains become an important part of the decision making process, our custom staining abilities are virtually limitless. While almost any floor can be stained the question we ask is “Should they be?” However if that is the best design solution then we are ready to oblige.
Grades –
Grades refer to the selections made during manufacture to allow or eliminate defects, both natural (knots, wormholes, mineral streaking, etc) and manufacturing related (mismilling, snipe, burn marks, etc). Grade is the easiest way to achieve a specific look with a floor once the species has been determined. In traditional flooring grades there are four recognized grades starting (highest to lowest) with Clear, then Select & Better, then #1 Common, and finally #2 Common. Below #2 Common you will see non-regulated grades such as Tavern, Rustic, #3 Common, and Utility these all are typically synonymous with the waste left over after the other grades are pulled out.
Traditional flooring grades make it easier on mills to train graders and this system has perpetuated for some time, however, with the rapid growth in the demand for more characteristic floors the challenges of using existing grading standards becomes readily apparent. When selecting floors under standard rules as you increase in Character you decrease your average length, and, you are limited to flooring that meets the grade specified, nothing better, and nothing worse.
Canterbury has a significantly different philosophy in regard to grade, recognizing three buying patterns that effect grade:
- For the customer looking for a sleek, elegant, refined, or contemporary look they offer Clear (in exotics) and Select & Better (Domestics and Some Exotics)
- For the customer looking for a country, rustic, Tuscan, antique, colonial, distressed, or worn look they offer Character & Better grade
- For shoppers looking for the lowest possible price per square foot, their philosophy is that the apparent savings are more than offset by increased waste, increased labor and lower quality appearance of the finished job and as such they and we choose not to pursue this market.
Canterbury’s Select and Better grade is a combination of Select & Clear material and
- Meets or exceed NWFA’s Select & Better rules for the species
- In domestics Canterbury’s Select is typically 5% longer on average than grade requires
- Offers the cleanest most consistent appearance in domestic species
Canterbury’s Character and Better grade is a combination of grades that achieves the following goals
- Drastically improved length average (as much as 150% longer than #1 and #2 grades)
- More accurate representation of the true natural beauty of wood
- A guaranteed percentage of material in longer, clearer lengths than possible in a #1 or #2
When grading for Character and Better the grading specialist is using their expertise to select the longest average length while balancing the allowable natural characteristics. From a traditional grading perspective Character is made up of the top half of #2 Common, all of #1 Common, all Select, and all Clear. The grading rule specifies that no less than 33% of the square footage will be Clear or Select & Better. No milling defect beyond those allowed in Select is permitted, and knots as permitted are able to be filled successfully at installation or, as in the case of prefinished Character floors, are prefilled before finishing. While you would not want to attempt to make a select floor from Character and Better material our customers report waste factors that are consistently 5% or less, compared to prior experiences with #1C and #2C where 10% or more waste is the norm. More important than this we feel is the finished appearance with fewer shorts and the associated joints.
Length –
After species and grade, there is no other decision you will make that will have a greater impact on the appearance of your floor than the length range and more specifically the average length. This area of hardwood flooring selection is far too often ignored, often intentionally, by mass market brands as they chase lower price points and shift their product focus to imported engineered floors. The difference between a floor with an average length of less than 24” (Common in many hand-scraped and engineered products) and one with an average length of 42”, 60”, 84”, or more is simply amazing. As you research your flooring purchase pay special attention to average lengths and especially close attention to those merchants and manufacturers who attempt to avoid discussing this crucial design decision. When in doubt, longer is always better.
Length cannot be faked or made up for after manufacturing, to achieve an average length that is over 30% longer than the competition Canterbury starts with lumber that is at least one, if not two grades higher than most mills. In their engineered product furniture and cabinet grade lumber are used almost exclusively.
Widths –
Width also has a major impact on the appearance of your floor and the room in which it is installed. This is even more so when combined with higher average lengths. With true wide planks, those being anything wider than 6”, your species choice will be more limited, and the price will increase. However, if you are trying to achieve the look of an old New England Farmhouse, French Chateau, or English Manor house nothing will lend more credibility to the design than a wide and long plank floor. Going one step further, the use of multiple random plank widths in the same room (random plank) further replicates the history of wood flooring, bringing back the look of Colonial times. Next down the scale are the standard plank products in a 3-1/2” to 6” range. These widths are still easily installed in all environments without finding specialized installers and are available in almost any species. They add incredibly to the impact of your floor on your décor since they are so different from 80% of the floors out there. Depending on color, finish, and installation direction you can use wide planks to bring a large room down to scale, or make a small room appear larger. Wider planks allow the true character of the wood to shine through and they reduce the number of joints in a room. Finally narrow widths (2-1/4” and 3-1/4”) typical of hardwood flooring installs throughout most of the 20th Century. If you wish to capture the feel of your childhood home, the downtown brownstone, or Midwestern prairie style home, then you may want to consider these widths. We would still suggest exploring the longer average lengths.
Surface Treatments –
Well over 90% of the flooring sold in this country has a smooth face with about half of these floors sold as prefinished with the accompanying beveled or eased edges, the other half shipped as unfinished flooring with squared edges. Beyond smooth faced floors there is an array of options, including hand scraping, sculpting, distressing, wire-brushing, deeply grooved edges, and more. These options are typically intended to simulate the effects of time and wear or to approximate the most rustic of antique floors. We can accommodate all of these looks in the vast majority of the products we sell.
Finishing –
The growth in prefinished flooring sales in our industry is undeniable and these floors are here to stay. Prefinished flooring offers convenience, is DIY friendly, and allows for a much faster install but the tradeoff for these advantages is flexibility in the final appearance (colors, gloss levels, etc.) and style with micro-bevels or easing required in all but the most accurately milled engineered floors.
Unfinished flooring and a competent installer on the other hand can turn a great floor into a fantastic work or art without the need for bevels and with a far more uniform appearance. The skilled craftsmen who practice this art can create for you a truly exceptional complement to any décor.
We are proud to offer a full line of products in both finished and unfinished styles, we offer custom prefinishing of our products and will allow you to choose your stain color, gloss level, etc. We also offer a prefinished engineered line without the annoying bevel. Our ‘standard’ products are ¾” thick; however we will provide custom milled floors at ½” or 3/8” thicknesses if desired.
Construction –
There are two primary constructions in hardwood flooring. Solid Wood Flooring, which consists entirely of real wood from one board and engineered wood floors which are made from a wear layer of solid real wood adhered to a substrate of plywood, MDF, or HDF. Engineered floors take two primary forms, thin wear layers (less than 3mm) including rotary sliced veneers products which aim to achieve a price point below solid wood floors, and premium products (3.2mm and thicker) which are able to be sanded and refinished later. At the very high end (4-6mm wear layer) equals the useable wear layer of a ¾” solid wood floor. These premium floors will almost always exceed the price of a comparable solid except for those made from very expensive species.
Engineered excels in areas solid cannot go, specifically below grade or in other areas where moisture could be an issue. Engineered floors are more dimensionally stable by design so they do not have the issues of gapping that can occur in solids when humidity levels are not maintained at a constant level throughout the year. Finally engineered floors do use less of the expensive hardwood and so contribute to sustainability of the forests.
We hope this discussion will get you started as you shop our site for ideas and inspiration. If our experienced sales consultants can be of assistance as you consider options please feel free to contact us by phone, email, or live chat.
We look forward to assisting you in the design of your dream floor.