Wooden flooring provides you and your home with natural aesthetics, textured flooring, character, and numerous other benefits. After weighing all your options and concluding that wooden floors best fit your home and needs, there's one final decision: whether to choose finished or unfinished wood floors. Finished woods are planks featuring a surface layer that has been sanded and coated with an added top layer. Wood finishes range from oils and sealants to wax and polyurethane. So how does this affect your flooring and decision-making? Here are the differences between finished and unfinished flooring.
Protection
The primary difference between finished and unfinished wood is the extra surface layer created by the finish. No matter the chosen finish wax, when applied, they make a coat of an additional protectant barrier to the external veneer of the plank. The more layers the wood contains, the longer it takes to endure damage. Unfinished wood becomes more susceptible to external impairments than finished wood because it lacks that extra blockade.
Maintenance
Since unfinished floors lack a supplementary shield, they require more maintenance. From heavy foot traffic to scratches impaled by clawed critters and dragging objects, floors endure a lot of damage and patching. Although hardwood offers one of the most durable flooring options, it faces inevitable wear over time. With finished woods, you don't have to conduct as many regular maintenance check-ups as unfinished wood; finished wood takes longer to endure the effects of damage.
Installation
After installation, prefinished floors are immediately open for business and ready to use. On the other hand, unfinished floors require added steps to the installment process. They need to be sanded to make sure the boards are even and placed cohesively across the ground. If you buy unfinished floors with the intention of DIYing the finishing process, that further takes up installation time.
Appearance
Hardwoods radiate natural beauty, exuding an earthy and cozy ambiance other floorings fail to achieve. Many people prioritize optimizing wood's natural appearance when featuring this flooring within their homes, ensuring they receive the full benefits of raw wood's authentic look and feel. Wood finishes deepen and accentuate wood's natural textures and burls, but it no longer possesses a raw appeal regardless of its highlighting the wood's natural features. Thus, finished woods aren't authentic enough for some people. However, finishes open the door to more variety, color, and style options.
From The Forest offers a diverse collection of prefinished floors, sporting an array of color selections. You can get a range of white oak engineered wood flooring in soft, dark, warm, or cool hues with its prefinished feature.
Whether you choose finished or unfinished floors, your home will still reap most of the benefits of wooden floors. However, for some people, the differences between finished and unfinished flooring play a huge role in reaching their desired looks and needs.