Why you should invest in engineered wood flooring
Let’s talk flooring. It’s one of the biggest investments you’ll make when it comes to designing your home and it’s worth agonising over and getting right! But the good news is, I’ve done all the procrastinating and am here to tell you what you should do! I know, you can thank me later x
Personally I love a real wood floor. It has a lovely feel underfoot and has a natural warmth (which laminate, while it can mimic the look, it just can’t imitate the feel). It’s hard wearing and easy to keep clean and relatively low maintenance, so great for busy families with pets. In rooms where you need more comfort, it looks perfect paired with rugs. So it’s always up there on my choice of floors to specify for ground floor rooms (although I love it in bedrooms too).
When it came to choosing a floor for my living room, I needed a floor that would be compatible with our underfloor heating, could take the knocks of a bustling family home and yet look the bomb. Tall ask? Not at all. An engineered floor has all the appearance of a solid wood floor but the plywood structure makes it very stable, so the perfect partner for underfloor heating. Because an engineered floor uses a top hardwood layer (anything between 2mm- 5mm) you are also using less hardwood than a solid wood floor which makes it more affordable and eco too (by comparison).
The Intenso Hardwood floor is available in four colours, 1. industrial oak oiled 2. traditional oak oiled 3. Intense oak oiled 4. eclipse oak oiled
I chose a modern chevron parquet floor for my living room. Parquet has been a particularly on-trend choice for floors, and there are lots of traditional block parquet designs, including engineered parquet on the market. However, the recent addition to Quick-Step’s portfolio is the Intenso collection and I think it’s a little different which appeals to me. I test drove it earlier this year and specified it for the house I designed at The Ideal Home show. It was a very modern house and the contemporary appearance of this design, I felt married the modernism with the homely vibe I wanted to create (image of the living room I designed is above). However the design is based on a classic Hungarian point design, a pattern that once graced many palaces and manor houses, so there you go, all the best ideas have been done before! And the good news is, the engineered click system makes it much easier to install, which my handy builder husband can attest. He laid the floor in our living room in just a weekend.
Intenso hardwood Traditional Oak Oiled, £54.99 per sq m, Quick-Step.
I chose the traditional oak colourway, and while this slight orange hue has been out of vogue recently in favour of grey oak floors, I’m seeing a strong move away from the cool greys and Scandi inspired pale woods in favour of these warmer hues which is echoed in recent interior trends. Not convinced? Take a look at my previous blog posts on Colour crush: Mustard and Dulux’s colour of the Year to learn that the most fashionable homes are all about the rich honey tones. Whilst cooler colours make a space feel calm and contemporary, it’s the warmer tones that make a place feel cosy so you need to ask yourself what feel you want to create.
My husband Tom, who is a master builder, recommends gluing the floor down, rather than installing it as a floating floor. This achieves a more solid floor as there are no squeaks or bounces from movement as you walk across it. It does however take longer to lay and the cost of the adhesive is significant. Tom used Everbuild Lumberjack 550 to secure our floor down. He prepped the floor by using self levelling compound to make sure the floor was super flat in preparation for the boards.
Why I chose engineered wood flooring:
* It has the look of real wood at a more affordable price.
* The solid wood layer can be sanded and refinished.
* Easy to lay – the Quick-Step installation system makes it quick and easy to install, my builder husband did my entire office in one weekend!
* More stable than solid wood. The core consists of spruce, Hevea or HDF and makes the floor stable and durable, and in combination with the other layers, prevents the floor from cupping or warping.
* It is compatible with underfloor Heating.
Reveal of the living room will be posted here on the blog, so make sure you subscribe to my newsletter, so you don’t miss it!
comments
I wavered between solid wood and engineered boards when doing my install, but, having just gone through the nightmare of a burst pipe and consequent flood I am very glad that I went for engineered. It’s much stronger and as a result has barely moved in response to the lake of water that covered it for a few hours. I’m only going to have to slightly sand down the very small area which has lifted about a single mm.
All of these are great tips! Engineered wood is a layered product made of an actual but thin slice of hardwood on top of a base of high-quality plywood.
