What High-End Luxury Flooring Options Are Available?
Are you underestimating how much beauty and elegance you can add to your home with high-end, luxurious flooring? If you’re already engaged with an experienced interior designer, high-quality, luxury flooring is probably one of the first things you will collaborate on.
If not, please take a moment or two to explore what’s possible. It’s not often one has the opportunity to create the impression an exquisite floor can make. This article is intended to help you see what is available to you and learn how to make the process of choosing the perfect floor for your home easier.
Natural Stone Is a Perennial Favorite
No doubt you’re familiar with timeless classics like marble and travertine. Over the last few years, exclusive home designs appearing in Country Living, Architectural Digest, and Veranda have introduced new textures, breathtaking colors, and stone varieties to the already adored classics.
Granite Floors
A wide variety of granite tiles and extra-large granite formats have inspired new exciting new looks. The editors at Forbes.com have put together a seminal review of how granite floors can range from black to white and everything in between. For the more adventurous, granite can also feature color swirls, striations, and reflective specks.
Porcelain And Ceramic Tiles
Not even solid concrete floors are as durable as today’s high-tech porcelain tile and ceramic tile floors. Whether your project is indoors or outdoors, a pool house or a mud room, porcelain and ceramic are proven to withstand the harshest treatment for years to come.
One of the most interesting developments in this type of floor is the wide variety of extraordinarily large formats now available. Some tiles are wider than four feet. This enables designers to create impeccable, continuous sight lines for a feeling of expanse.
Hardwood Floors And Engineered Wood
Perhaps there’s no better way to add grace and a sense of heritage to your home than a solid wood floor. The warmth and textures are grounding as well as stunning in natural beauty. Today, engineered wood flooring combines technical and performance excellence with the irreplaceable elegance of real wood.
Exotic Species To Fall In Love With
Deep, rich, and dark Brazilian varieties were extremely rare and difficult to source. Today, these uniquely beautiful varieties are harvested in a sustainable and eco-friendly way.
Whether your particular design concept employs them as a sophisticated border accent or every single square foot of a great room, you can make your selection from exotics originating from Africa, South America, and Australia. Yes, these exotics are indeed expensive. Then again, to those who can appreciate their one-of-a-kind vibrant colors, they are worth it.
A Reference Guide On the Durability of Hardwood Species
The ability of a wood species of flooring to resist being dented is a good indicator of how long your wood floor will retain its original beauty. The Janka Hardness Test shows the performance of more than 50 different exotic wood species from around the world. Here are just a sample of them:
Brazilian Ebony 4,000 pounds force
Brazilian Walnut (Ipe) 3,684 pounds force
Bolivian Cherry 3,650 pounds force
Golden Teak 2,330 pounds force
Sydney Blue Gum 2,023 pounds force
Purple Heart 1,860 pounds force
Hickory 1,820 pounds force
Rosewood 1,780 pounds force
Zebrawood 1,575 pounds force
White Oak 1,360 pounds force
Red Oak 1,290 pounds force
Please keep in mind, whichever wood species you prefer, today’s specially developed finishes are extraordinarily resistant to scratches and wear.
Distressed Finishes For a Bit of Shabby Chic
If shiny and brand new has too much of a nouveau riche look for you, take a moment or two to see the shabby chic world of distressed wood finishes. Curiously, the kind of dents, gouges and saw marks that disqualified wood flooring materials as subpar just a few years ago are now part of a popular wave in flooring. These floors give you all the quality and beauty with a distinctive lived-in look that people love. Distressed floors add character to your design.
The Practical Side of Luxury
What if you’re looking for high-end luxury that’s easy to install? Or, you’re looking to replace the floor of an income property, but you insist on something that’s sophisticated and beautiful? Well, you’re in luck. Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring (LVP flooring) and laminate flooring have come a long way in high quality and high performance.
At the higher end of the scale, these floors are almost indistinguishable in look from real wood floors. As you would expect, they are significantly more cost-effective, and the lower installation costs involved add even more value.
What You Can Expect From the Process
The more ambitious and more exclusive the project, the more crucial it is to partner with flooring experts who can guide you through what can be a process that’s quite involved. Picking the specific floor you want is just a small part.
Things like subfloor inspection and preparation often take homeowners by surprise. Often, preparation and installation can rival the cost of the floor. Big box store personnel are used to this kind of high-end custom project. It’s in your best interest to find a local flooring expert with excellent references from discriminating clients who insist on top quality.
The Benefits of Shop-At-Home Service
Experts like the people at Flooring Direct will make themselves available for an appointment that fits your busy schedule. You’ll be able to plan and discuss every step of the process with them. And the best part is that you will be able to see a sample of the actual flooring in the comfort of your own home.
This eliminates the guesswork of chasing different flooring trends and options. You’ll be able to see the exact floor in the exact room in your project. Take all the time you need to see how the floor looks with the sunlight that comes into the space and how it complements your style of furniture.
(214) 390-0850
Dan Ratcliff
Dan Ratcliff is the CEO and President of Flooring Direct in Dallas / Fort Worth. Over the last two decades, he has grown Flooring Direct into a premier Shop-at-Home traditional & hardwood flooring company. With a true dedication to customer service and integrity, Flooring Direct has become DFW's largest highest-rated Dallas-local flooring dealer. Dan has lived in Dallas all of his life and was raised in Dallas with family roots and love for the community and local sports. It's with that sense of family that Flooring Direct has contributed to and sponsored children's organizations like Jonathan's Place and scholastic athletics like Plano's Girls Soccer.
