5 Fun Facts About Hardwood Flooring
You don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it once your flooring has been laid, and that’s natural. Whether we’re talking about hardwood flooring, luxury vinyl tiles, or laminate flooring, you may spend about five minutes a week thinking about the floor. Even then that thinking doesn’t extend past “that flooring looks really nice (if it said flooring had been laid by Value Carpets and Flooring) or “that flooring looks a little drab. I need to clean/replace it” (if it’s been laid by someone else). But there are a lot of really interesting facts about hardwood flooring that you should be aware of.
In this article from Value Carpets and Flooring, we’ll be going over some fun facts about hardwood flooring. Hardwood flooring is one of our favourite forms of surfacing here at Value Carpets and Flooring, and we’re very excited to talk about it. So, without further adieu, let’s go over 5 fun facts about hardwood flooring!
Fun Fact 1: Real Hard Wood Flooring is Completely Unique
Let’s start with a really fun one, shall we?
No two pieces of wood are exactly the same. They can be cut the same length and varnished in the same way, and even painted. But in terms of grain, how the wood ‘flows’ from one end to the other, each piece is completely unique. And when you put a number of those pieces together, you create a collage of unique, interconnected pieces – a collage that looks completely unique. This means that no one else on Earth has a hardwood floor that looks like yours.
Fun Fact 2: Hard Work and a Great Investment
The next fun fact is one for the history fans out there: electric sanders weren’t invented until the 1920s. But what does this mean for hardwood floors? Well, it means that before the 1920s, all hardwood flooring had to be laid and sanded by hand.
This means that not only were wooden floors from before that period an actual craftsman’s masterpiece but they were also seen as serious investments in your home. As a result, the price for a home with a laid hardwood floor greatly exceeded that of a home without one – a trend that we’ll soon see continues right up until the modern day.
Fun Fact 3: The Great Depression
The third fun factoid of the day is, sadly, not a fun fact at all.
During the Great Depression, when the international economy collapsed, construction companies had a really tough time getting funds for projects. This is understandable, really – everyone was suffering at the time. But as a result, there are very few homes built between 1929 and 1939.
After the war, though, there was a boom, and thousands and thousands of new homes with hardwood floors were. This boom lasted until the late 1950s, when the housing market began to slow down again.
Fun Fact 4: The 1960s
During the 1960s, there was another massive dip in the number of homes with hardwood floors being built. This dip came as a result of the cost of hardwood flooring compared to the relative cost-effectiveness of carpeted floors and other, newly-invented forms of surfacing. Construction companies could save money by laying carpets instead of traditional hardwood flooring, so many of them stopped laying hardwood flooring completely.
Fun Fact 5: Added Value
For our final fun fact, we thought we’d end on a positive note, as well as bring up that trend we mentioned in Fun Fact 2, again.
While the perceived value of hardwood flooring has grown and diminished over the years, in the late 1990s property developers and real estate agents began to realise that quality hardwood flooring increased the value of a home. People were viewing real hardwood as a real luxury, and as a result, they were willing to pay more for a house with it already installed. At the same time, companies began to offer hardwood flooring as a flooring option once again.
As a result, real wood flooring cam back into in vogue again – especially amongst people who value real craftsmanship. So today if you’re looking to sell your home, and if your home has hardwood floors, you can realistically expect a higher sale price than you would if your home was carpeted.
Isn’t that fantastic?
Real Wood Flooring in Sutton Coldfield from Value Carpets and Flooring
Folks, we love hardwood flooring at Value Carpet and Flooring, and we’re proud to sell it. For over ten years now, we’ve been providing our clients throughout the West Midlands with high-quality flooring installations. Our products include laminate flooring, real wood flooring, carpets, and luxury vinyl flooring to suit both homes and corporate environments.
For more information about our range of flooring products, including real wood flooring, in Halesowen and Sutton Coldfield, please contact Value Carpets and Flooring today.