Antique wood floor is commonly sought after because of its natural beauty. An antique wood floor cannot be duplicated; there is no way you can get new wood floors to show the character of antique wood floor. Because antique wood floor obtains little bits and pieces of its own character through out its time, there is no way you can administer this amount of detail into a new wood floor without it looking artificial. The artificial wormholes and fake worn spots will not mimic the true beauty of a naturally worn surface over many of years.
An aspect to consider when looking for antique wood floor is the flooring tongue and grooved. The reason you may want a tongue and grooved flooring is because of the tight inner locking fits that is obtained with a tongue and grooved installed floor. This tight inner locking fit ensures that the boards will not warp easily and will maintain a tighter fit giving you a better looking surface for many years. Another benefit of the tongue and groove design is that it forms a better airflow barrier than the traditional slat board design.
What type of wood is it made of oak, pine, heart pine, maple or many hundreds of different woods? Inspecting for termites or other insects that may infest your flooring. Flooring that is made from a hard wood will last longer than a softer pine floor. Because of the high wear ability, hard wood flooring is considered to be more desirable. Some other desirable hard woods are pecan, walnut, and mahogany. All antique wood floors are made from solid materials, unlike the modern manufacturing process.
The modern fad is to install pre-finished wood floors. This is where the stain and the clear coat or protection coat has already been applied at the factory. The great aspect about this system is that all you need to do is install it and your done. You do not have to sand, stain and clear coat after the installation; the factory already took care of it. The bad thing about this new pre-finished floor is that it’s not solid. What I mean is that its generally only veneers of thin wood on the top and bottom of the floor, the center is made up of other substances.
You can think of the construction as similar to an Oreo cookie. The outer cookie is the veneer (thin strips of wood) the inner crème filling is what ever the manufacturer places in between the wood. Wear and Tear, Refinishing and Repairing. Here is were the true test comes into play, the test of time. What can be done to resurrect the original beauty after many years of wear or damage? With traditional solid antique wood floors you can sand them and refinish, unlike their modern cousins. Being the solid has more material present, it is possible to sand out minor dings and wear and bring the floor back to its original state.
This is not true for the manufactured flooring with the inner core. The veneer is generally to thin to allow you to sand this type of flooring, however; its possible to find some premium manufactures that produce flooring that can be sanded once or twice. If you want the flooring to last a life time use solid instead of manufactured.
