The Importance of Long Lengths in your Wood Floor
We received these nice pictures from Todd N in Colorado. Todd purchased our Wide Plank Hickory floors last summer and sent along some photos recently to show me how it turned out.
The first thing I noticed about the floor was the long lengths! I felt it was a great time to share the photos with the Carlisle community and talk about how long lengths can make a big difference in the look of your wood floor.
I also want to provide some shopping tips to new customers so you know what questions to ask and more importantly what kind of information to expect to the best qualtiy and the best looking wood floor.
Most clients I work with are shopping for wood floors for the first time and don’t realize how important the lengths of the flooring planks are to the overall look.
Did you know:
- The average length of most wood flooring sold today is only 2′- to 3′-long
- It’s hard to find wood floorboards over 6′-long
- If you order long lengths as a special order, you will pay extra and wait longer
- Most flooring is measured in inches rather than in feet
If you settle for the average flooring on the market, you could have as many as 2,000 butt-joints in a 500 square-foot room, which will make your floor and your space look busy.
But if you invest in long-length wood flooring, you can take your number of butt joints from 2,000 down to about 200! Length is an important design element for any space and one that you should understand when making a final floor selection.
Specifying Length
Knowing the average length of your floor boards can be very insightful, but how can you specify the lengths and understand what you are getting? The best question to ask is this:
“What is the average length of my flooring going to be?”
If it’s less than 5’, you should be very concerned about the overall quality of the wood floor and the final look you will get once the floor installed. But if it is 7-11′ long, like a Carlisle wide plank floor, you are sure to get a beautiful result — avoiding the visual clutter of shorter planks and the long wait of a special order.
As a bonus…longer boards come from older trees which means a higher quality floor that will provide more stability than other wood flooring in the marketplace.
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