Wood Floor Blog

Real Oak Floors guide to wood flooring

Archive for January, 2010

Maximising Space: Less is More with Home Designers

Jan 25

Posted by admin in Engineered Wood Flooring | No Comments

engineered hardwood flooring

engineered hardwood flooring

Decreased housing budgets reflects a general trend to increase a home’s efficiency, reduce excess waste and maximise space, Maryland’s Baltimore Sun reports.

According to a survey conducted by the NAHB:

average size of an American house shrank about 100 square feet last year to about 2,400 square feet…the percentage of homes with three or more bathrooms fell for the first time since 1992, while homes with four or more bedrooms declined for the third year in a row.

Ridding your home of needless extras such as game rooms, large en-suite bathrooms and outdoor swimming pools can not only help reduce initial outlay costs, but also cut utility bills and save energy. Concentrating on making better use of the essentials, such as better insulation in windows and doors, smart ways of heating and more modern and effecient appliances, can help save even more money. Also, choosing a good engineered wood floor can be a key factor in the overall appearance of your home. The colour, style and species all help to shape the look you are trying to create.

However, going ‘green’ isn’t always the cheapest option since innovative technology generally comes at a premium and can scare some consumers away, even if they will save money in the long run.

Making smart choices about the essential aspects of your home will always reap the benefits and there hasn’t been a better time to start than now, with Real Oak Floors offering engineered hardwood flooring at reduced prices yet sourcing woods only from sustainable forests.

Available in a range of styles, engineered hardwood flooring can be oiled, lacuqered or even unfinished. Its stability stems from the fact that a top layer of real wood compliments a strong ply-board backing. This helps when installing a wood floor in a difficult area such as over concrete and is also resillient against expansion, shrinking and warping.

Underfloor heating also helps to keep your home warm for less by spreading heating elements strategically across your home.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Real Oak Floors News Update

Jan 18

Posted by admin in News | 1 Comment

square-listingHave you ever thought of having your own coffee table designed exactly to your requirements? Well now you can!

Real Oak Floors now offer a huge selection of bespoke furniture – all made to your personal size, style and finish. If you need an extra large table made – no problem, just send over your measurements, type of wood required and finish and Real Oak Floors will do the rest.

There is a large range of timbers to choose from – the most common ones being European white oak, American white oak, Walnut and Maple, however there is also a range of hardwoods and softwoods including Scandinavian redwood, tulipwood, Ash, Maple, Meranti, Iroko, sapele, beech, cherry and the very exotic Wenge.

Real Oak Floors Started out 5 years ago supplying flooring to the trade and public but over the years they have seen the range grow to incorporate customers demands. Now, after their recent move to much larger premises the variety of products and services has doubled with a large amount of timber products available from stock.

A full range of rough sawn timber is now available with window boards, skirting boards, door casings, architraves and profiles ready to take away.

Solid wood worktops including a cutting service for sinks, breakfast bars is now also available.

Recent additions to the range also include the Karndean vinyl range which has a full wood effect range with Kersaint & Cobb rugs and stair runners. Real Oak Floors are also authorised distributors of the Woca, Osmo, Saicos and Bona ranges of seals and maintenance products.

The flooring range has also expanded recently with the addition of a full range of real smoked and smoked look boards – available with distressing as an additional extra. These boards give the perfect “original” look to complement your room. With trends changing all the time Real Oak Floors have managed to expand the range to adapt. All boards in the best selling range “The Creative Collection” now come in a UV oiled finish option to give a much more durable finish.
In the Majestic Collection range there is a new “rough sawn” selection of engineered oak floors – these have a mill worn appearance with a rough textured finish to give a perfect rustic style flooring – available in a choice of colours to suit.

Real Oak Floors source all their floors from sustainable sources around the world – most coming with the FSC or PEFC certificate. There is a large range of solid wooden floors available to suit all styles, sizes, colours and budgets. The engineerd wooden floor selection has equally as large a choice and with most of these wooden floors on display in the new 2000sq foot showroom, you will be spoilt for choice!!!

Real Oak Floors new showroom is open 6 days per week – Monday – Thursday 9am – 5pm, Friday 9am – 4pm and Saturday 10am – 2pm.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Creative Floor Collection – Updated and New Images

Jan 8

Posted by admin in Engineered Wood Flooring | 2 Comments

We’ve been busy this Christmas updating our wood flooring ranges, and we can proudly present our updated Creative Engineered Flooring Collection.

Our Creative Floor Collection is a bespoke range of engineered wood flooring that aims to give customers a wide choice of extremely high quality engineered boards in finishes that will suit almost any taste. To give you a true picture of the creative flooring we offer we’ve gone to some lengths to make sure the images you see on our site are the closest in colour and texture you will get to the real thing.

Of course, it’s impossible to replicate the style of wood completely, but the following chart should give you a breathtaking overview of the diverse range of engineered wood flooring we offer.

Oiled Creative Floor Collection

Oiled Creative Floor Collection

The creative oak flooring distressed collection reveals the contrasts and vibrancy of the real wood layer and is available in a range of contrasting dark and light tones.

Discover the depth of a smoked wood floor with dark tones of Campana oak flooring or the contrasting grains of Maranello. If you’re looking to retain the natural tones of the wood then our unfinished floor collection is the right choice. Trevisio is more akin to natural oak while Soleto is richer, almost red in colour.

Distressed, Smoked and Unfinished Oak Flooring

Distressed, Smoked and Unfinished Oak Flooring

Popularity: 4% [?]

Interior Design Trends of the Noughties

Jan 4

Posted by admin in Solid Wood Flooring | 2 Comments

Taking a look back over the past decade, we have put much more effort into personalising our living spaces yet maintaining a chic minimalism made popular during the 2000s.

interior-design-inspiration-linea-italia

Image Credit: Trendir Modern Interiors 2009

With the rise of interior design reality shows, more and more people are considering their living interiors much more carefully. The Guardian’s Huma Quershi sums up the decade nicely:

While we may never entirely tire of whitewashed brick walls teamed with wooden floors, interiors styles have grown more individual and less prescriptive.

Indeed, once a staple of many modern homes, real wood flooring has diversified and broken new ground with ever increasing ranges of new colours and styles and a widening array of wood species. Exotic woods have appeared, from the rich red tones of Doussie to the striking contrasting brown grains of Iroko, and have even inspired people to make their floors a centre peice of a home.

Of course, a balance needs to be kept between individuality and good taste. No one wants sensory overload as soon as they walk into a room so choosing subtle colours from our diverse engineered flooring collection may just be the perfect addition to your home.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Range of Karndean Vinyl Flooring Updated

Jan 4

Posted by admin in Wood Floor Blog | 1 Comment

vinyl-flooring-swatchAs well as the Art Select range, Real Oak Floors now stock the following ranges of vinyl wood flooring:

  • Van Gough
  • Renoir
  • Knight Tile

Within each of these ranges there are a wide variety of styles and colours to suite every taste. The great thing about vinyl flooring is that it is laid in strips just like real wood flooring but with the ease of simply gluing and laying. Enjoy a high quality vinyl floor with a 2.5-3mm layer of thickness.

Popularity: 5% [?]