How to Choose Hardwood Flooring for Every Room

When it comes to choosing hardwood flooring for your home, engineered hardwood floors are hands down a top-performer in terms of beauty and resale value, and with a nine-coat UV wear layer, LIFECORE engineered hardwoods can handle active family traffic. Add in our proprietary ZERO-ADD technology, and you also have eco-friendly floors that won’t add to the VOCs in your home.

But given all of the options, how do you choose hardwood flooring for every room? And how do you know engineered hardwood flooring will work for you? We’ve paired our hardwoods with a few rooms so you can make the decision for yourself.

Hardwoods and the living room or family room?

As the busiest room in most homes, your living room needs flooring that can handle the wear and tear of everyday life while serving as a foundation for your design aesthetic.

Enter North American Maple. As the second-highest scoring non-exotic species on the Janka Hardness scale, maple hardwood floors can definitely withstand heavy traffic from people and pets alike. Plus, choosing a distressed hardwood floor like Allegra Richly Stated can better hide scratches your floor might experience thanks to its wire-brushed surface.

Our maple collections are also created with a reactive process. This means the floor is naturally colored (not just stained), allowing the reaction to penetrate the whole hardwood veneer. In turn, deep scratches are less visible because the color goes beyond the stain layer all the way through the hardwood veneer.

The best hardwood flooring for your kids’ room

From bonus rooms to bedrooms, engineered hardwood floors are also a great choice for families with children. The more rustic aesthetic of the reclaim-inspired Anew Oak Collection is a great way to hide the sort of chaos kids are known for, while giving you an on-trend option for your home that lends itself to a fun and versatile look.

Bonus! It also repairs well with a color stick, and the deep wire brushing makes it so dents from tough wear don’t show as easily. Like our maple collections, our oak hardwood floors are created with a reactive process and available in multiple stains for a variety of grain colors.

While some might consider synthetic carpet, laminate, or vinyl as a kid-friendly option, these materials are notorious for off-gassing VOCs like formaldehyde in the home, which can have both short and long-term effects on health.

Engineered hardwood flooring is made for the kitchen

Hardwood floors in the kitchen? Yes! Unlike traditional hardwood, engineered hardwood has a center core that makes it less likely to warp or flex, meaning it’s resistant to the cupping and bowing traditional hardwood floors may experience in moist areas.

An oak hardwood floor like Amara Clear View is a great design fit for any kitchen. Plus, oak is one of the most stable hardwood flooring species. With our reactive process and nine-coat UV finish, scratches won’t show as much as they might with other brands of engineered hardwoods.

Warranty matters

If you do choose engineered wood floors for your home, remember: Not all engineered hardwoods are created equal. Be sure to do your due diligence in understanding exactly what your warranty covers. We’ve made the LIFECORE warranty easy to understand with our cheat sheet. And if you need additional help on how to choose hardwood flooring for certain rooms of your home, feel free to contact us here at LIFECORE with any questions you might have.