BEST Tips Choosing Hardwood Flooring (NEW family room project)
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Today I am sharing our best tips for choosing hardwood flooring. Our family room was one of the first rooms over 5 years ago that I shared when I first started blogging. The room is fairly large and very bright.
One of my first projects was adding wide pine planks otherwise known as shiplap to the walls to give the space a comfortable modern farmhouse feel with a hint of coastal.
We were thrilled when Shaw Floors reached out to us regarding their new flooring called, Epic Plus. We have always wanted hardwood in this room but never seemed to get around to doing the project. Their timing was perfect!
BEST Tips Choosing Hardwood Flooring
Living Room | Decorating with pops of color
Spring Living Room | Pink and blue decorating ideas
The carpet has always served it’s purpose but hardwoods are just so much easier to keep clean and with two dogs and four generations of family under one roof, you can imagine the wear and tear on our floors. Trust me, if you have dogs that have accidents or kids that have spilt their entire dinner on your carpet, you know exactly what I mean! Shaw Floors makes great stain-proof carpet, too, but unfortunately, that’s not what we had.
Family Room empty
The Epic Plus Hardwood flooring is especially constructed for high traffic areas and comes in a variety of widths and colors. We chose the Fairbanks Maple hardwood in a 5 inch width. The color is gold dust which is fairly light and neutral. The gold dust color has light variations of brown and hints of grey.
Image via Shaw Floors | Fairbanks Maple | Gold Dust
For 40 years, Shaw has been noted for exceptional quality and products. One thing that I love about Shaw is that you can get their products just about anywhere. They offer every flooring option from laminate, carpet, vinyl, hardwood, tile and stone.
Many of you know that I love to swap out pillows and area rugs from time to time, especially with the changes in season, so a floor that was neutral in nature (not a lot of grain) would lend the flexibility to create different design themes. Does that make sense? Maple wood has a soft subtle grain, is very sturdy and looks elegant. Below, you can see the grain texture for Oak, Maple and Hickory.
EPIC Plus® features Stabilitek, the latest technology from the Shaw Hardwood Innovation Lab. Stabilitek core is built for high performance and lasting durability.
EPIC Plus features a strong tongue and groove system that ensures quick, easy, installation and provides superior joint integrity. We decided the floating floor installation method would work the best for us and used Shaw Tongue and Groove Adhesive (glue). We used their installation guide to ensure proper installation as well as determining which installation method would suit our needs.
The best tip I can offer when choosing a hardwood floor is to make sure that your existing floor that you are covering is able to adhere properly to your new flooring. For us, the engineered hardwood option, Epic Plus, lends so much flexibility with installation and honestly, made the most sense. It’s budget friendly, looks amazing and is meant for high traffic.
I will be sharing the full DIY hardwood flooring tutorial in the next week or so showing you every step. The installation is really the easy part, it’s the prep work that is time consuming. Stay tuned, over the next 4 – 5 weeks we will be sharing how we prepped our floor, the installation process and finally the reveal. Don’t forget to follow us over on instagram to see live stories on my new studio and this fun flooring project.
UPDATE:
You can see the project from start to finish by checking out these posts.
how to remove carpet + prep for hardwood flooring
how to install engineered hardwood flooring tips
gorgeous brown engineered hardwood family room reveal
Meet Jessica
What started as a hobby, Jessica’s blog now has millions of people visit yearly and while many of the projects and posts look and sound perfect, life hasn’t always been easy. Read Jessica’s story and how overcoming death, divorce and dementia was one of her biggest life lessons to date.
I have Shaw engineered flooring and I love it. I can’t wait to see how it looks and thanks for sharing. Say hi to your grandpa and I’m glad he’s doing well.
Thank you so much for this invaluable information, I can’t wait to see the process. I have always wondered how one made a choice and you have enlightened me. TFS.