If you are buying your hardwood flooring from a store, you’ll likely find it available in cartons. A carton will over different amounts of space depending on the seller but usually a carton is about 25 square feet. However, when you buy your wood secondhand or as overstock, it’s not necessarily sold in cartons. The seller is often offering as much as they have. That means that it can be difficult to find enough hardwood secondhand to cover certain rooms. Some will be tempted to buy different batches of the same type of wood, but they still might not match.
Even if the wood is the same type, finished the same, and stained the same, it will not match perfectly. There are just too many factors to account for. So, if you cannot find enough hardwood to cover your floor, your best option is to buy several small batches of wood and mix them together.
Varied-Width Flooring
Homes are arranged mostly in rectangles. The rectangles are typically close to being round numbers. A room might be 500 square feet, 375 square feet, and so on. So, cartons of wood are sold in round numbers or close to that. Trees, however, do not grow in tidy numbers and shapes. If a crafter cuts down a tree and cuts it into planks, the tree might produce only 113 square feet or wooden planks or some other odd number. Trees are also shaped irregularly. It might be simply impossible to cut the trunk and every branch into planks of the same size. In the past, homeowners would cut the trees into planks of several different sizes, utilizing as much of the tree as possible. They’d install those varied planks, producing what is now known as varied-width flooring.
Varied-width flooring is a hardwood floor that is made of planks of different widths. The planks might also be different lengths and even different types of wood. The look is rustic and classic because it evokes homes that were constrained by the availability of the trees around them.
The Current Trend
Varied-width flooring is trending, much like everything that is rustic. If you want to get on the varied-width trend, you can actually save some money by buying your hardwood secondhand or overstock. Buying your wood in odd numbers and small batches will save you a lot of money. You’ll also have a very attractive floor.
If you’re interested in installing new hardwood floors in Portland, call Treadline Construction today to setup your in-home consultation!