If you love the timeless appeal of wood flooring, you’re in luck! Our flooring showroom at Benson Stone Company is one of the largest in the Midwest, and we feature four styles of flooring with that classic wood look: solid hardwood, engineered hardwood, luxury vinyl, and hybrid laminate. Each has its own unique characteristics, benefits, and considerations. We’ll break down the differences for you to help you find the perfect fit for your home.
1. Solid Hardwood: The Timeless Classic
Solid hardwood is the classic choice for a reason. Each plank is a single, thick piece of natural wood, offering a timeless beauty that never goes out of style. Solid hardwood offers an unmatched sense of elegance and authenticity. It’s a design element that truly enhances your home’s value. Plus, it can be refinished multiple times, so you can restore its beauty or even change the stain color to match a new design scheme. Because solid hardwood is a natural material, it’s sensitive to moisture and temperature fluctuations.
Therefore, it’s best used for ground-level and upper-story rooms like living rooms, dining rooms, hallways, and bedrooms. These are spaces where its classic beauty can shine without the risk of water damage.
2. Engineered Hardwood: The Smart Evolution
Engineered hardwood offers the best of both worlds. It features a top layer of real hardwood—the part you see and feel—bonded to a multi-layered, high-density core. This clever construction makes it more stable and durable than solid hardwood. Engineered hardwood is more resistant to humidity and temperature changes, making it a fantastic choice for more areas of your home.
This flooring is wonderfully versatile. It can be used in all the same rooms as solid hardwood, but its enhanced stability makes it suitable for spaces like kitchens and even basements where there might be a greater risk of moisture.
3. Luxury Vinyl (LVP/LVT): The Modern Marvel
Today’s luxury vinyl plank (LVP) and luxury vinyl tile (LVT) are a world away from the sheet vinyl of the past. Crafted with stunning high-definition imaging and realistic textures, they mimic the look of wood and stone so convincingly that it’s often hard to tell the difference. This is the ultimate choice for durability and peace of mind. Luxury vinyl is 100% waterproof, incredibly resistant to scratches and scuffs, and a breeze to clean.
Its waterproof nature makes it ideal for high-moisture and high-traffic areas. Think kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and basements. However, its beautiful designs and exceptional durability make it a fantastic choice for living rooms, entryways, and anywhere you need a stylish and worry-free floor.
4. Laminate Hybrid: The Best of Both Worlds
A newer innovation in the flooring world is hybrid laminate, a product that cleverly combines the best features of luxury vinyl and traditional laminate. This flooring is built with a dense, waterproof core similar to luxury vinyl, but it’s topped with a wear layer that offers superior scratch and dent resistance, much like a high-quality laminate. It’s also significantly thicker than most LVP floors, which gives it a more substantial feel underfoot. This extra thickness can also be a practical advantage, as it often helps with existing door jamb heights and other installation details, potentially saving you money on prep work.
Hybrid laminate is an ideal solution if you need the durability and waterproof qualities of a modern floor but also want the added peace of mind that comes with exceptional scratch resistance.
No matter which option you’re leaning toward, our talented team of flooring experts and home design consultants are here to guide you through every step. We’ll help you narrow down your options and select a floor that you’ll love for years to come.
Have questions? Reach out to our flooring team today at (779) 210-3449
Thanks for reading!