Engineered Hardwood Flooring Would be a Great Addition to My Home

Monotony is the bane of human endeavor. There is an ever increasing urge to change; because, change is the essence of life. Seeing the same old cement concrete flooring, day in and day out has been a pain in the neck. Being an engineer myself, I decided to experiment with engineered hardwood flooring for a change by doing the basic homework. Again for a change, I decided to go for learning about its negatives first.

Engineered hardwood flooring is not recommended for basements, bathrooms and kitchen where there is fear of perennial ingress of moisture. By the process of elimination, I was left with the only options of Dining, Bedroom and Living rooms, which emerged free from any controversy. I left the Dining and Living rooms out of reckoning provisionally and chose the Bedroom for engineered hardwood flooring trials.

I prepared a budget mentally in my mind and started planning. I involved my wife in the selection of the color and texture of the hardwood, to match with the interiors of the bedroom for fulfilling the appearance criterion in tune with personal taste and lifestyle, but with a tougher finish for withstanding the intended wear and tear. I went in for a combination of click and parquet methods for tongue and groove installation, so that evenly sized tiles comprising of five layers of engineered hardwood flooring that have been glued together in a geometric pattern could be used. The cost appeared to be affordable, because I chose to keep the minimum recommended height above the existing concrete flooring. I decided for pre-finishing the engineered hardwood flooring with UV-cured polyurethane and aluminum oxide to afford it extra wear resistance, followed by a single sander refinishing.

The methodology having been frozen, I zeroed in on one of the best of the service providers available in the market to undertake the job, after comparison of rates on offer from a few of them to firm up on a competitive rate. I also ensured that the personnel who are actually deputed for executing the flooring job are adequately trained. The job was carried out with clockwork precision in one of the week-ends under my direct supervision. Input materials required for the engineered hardwood flooring job had been arranged in advance.

Engineered hardwood flooring in fact turned out to be a great addition to my home. The confidence gained with this experimentation has emboldened me to chalk out the strategies to go for engineered hardwood flooring for the Dining and Living rooms too in the very near future, budget permitting!