6 Benefits of Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood floors are a timeless and beautiful flooring choice, but with the rise in popularity and appealing price point of laminate, tile, and carpet, you may be considering other options for your home. Here’s why you should choose hardwood flooring for your home remodel. 

What Are the Advantages of Hardwood Flooring?

1. Low maintenance and easy cleaning

Got a mess? Hardwoods are much less prone to stains than carpet, allowing you to easily sweep up or wipe away most spills and debris. Traditional mopping isn’t recommended as it leaves too much liquid behind, but lower maintenance options like a microfiber mop or steam cleaner work well. For an easy and affordable cleaning solution with household ingredients, you can use a mixture of vinegar and water or a few drops of dish soap and water.

2. Durable flooring

Hardwood floors are notoriously easy to maintain thanks to their durability, meaning you’ll need to replace them less than other types of floors. While they can get scratched or dented, it’s usually pretty difficult to do (we suggest using felt pads for chairs and furniture legs to better protect hardwood floors).

Carpet has a lifespan of 5 to 15 years, depending on the type of carpet and area of your house. Laminate flooring, a popular alternative to hardwood, has a lifespan of 15 to 25 years but can be susceptible to water damage. Alternatively, properly maintained hardwood floors can last up to 20-30 years before needing to be refinished.

3. Hardwood adds value to your home

Hardwood floors are a major selling point for potential home buyers and may even help your home sell faster. Many buyers will pay more for hardwoods and view it as a favorable alternative to cleaning or removing carpets. 

The National Association of Realtors reported in 2022 that homeowners can recoup 118% of their investment for installing new hardwood floors and 147% for refinishing existing floors—the highest ROI out of all the remodeling projects they covered.

Check out this Kitchen Renovation in Portland, OR featuring hardwood floors.

4. Allergen resistant

As opposed to carpet, which traps dust, dander, and pollen in its fibers, hardwood floors can improve the air quality in your home and are better for those with allergies. Even other hard surfaces like tile and laminate can attract dust and allergens in their grout lines and embossing. 

Neil Kelly Design Consultant Anna Lovell shares, “Due to wear-and-tear, cleaning purposes, and allergies, it’s simply healthier to avoid carpet altogether.”

5. Versatile design style

Thanks to their neutral color palette and timeless nature, hardwood floors are a versatile design choice that can complement every decor style. A variety of colors, shades, and wood species are available to give a custom look, as well as geometric patterns like herringbone or parquet. 

See how hardwoods can tie spaces together in this Seattle Area Whole-House Remodel.

6. Can be refinished

Lastly, one of the standout benefits of hardwood flooring is that if you do want to refresh them or change the color, they can be refinished rather than replaced. The cost to refinish hardwoods is typically much lower than buying and installing new flooring and, considering that they can be sanded and refinished up to six or seven times over their lifetime, you’ll be investing in quality that will last for generations.

Work With Neil Kelly To Update Your Home’s Flooring

Neil Kelly’s design/build remodeling experts specialize in custom kitchens, bathrooms, additions, conversions, and whole-house renovations. Whether your remodeling project entails restoring existing hardwood floors or adding new ones to your space, our team can bring your vision to life.

Get in touch with us to schedule a complimentary consultation.