Hickory Flooring – Tough to Beat

Hickory flooring is a perfect choice for your new home or refurbished interiors. These give your room a hardwood floor with a rich patina and unique character, which few floor styles can match up to. Hickory floors are well known for their strength and resilience, and can be used to complement any interior fashion style.

"Hickory" is not a single wood species, and is actually a mixture of pignut, shagbark, pecan and bitternut hickory. The tree is relatively small and obtaining wider wood is naturally expensive. Hickory wood is recognized for its durability, shock resistance and its excellent steam-bending properties.

Can you believe that Hickory is twice as hard as oak? The heaviest of American hardwoods, Hickory holds nails and screws well. The wood can be sanded to a good finish, and the grain pattern can be enhanced by application of medium-to-dark finishes and bleaching treatments.

All unsorted Hickory floorings are highly varied in color. Sorted wood in uniform colors can be obtained at a much higher price, for those who can afford it. Many people like the variation, knots and figures of this versatile wood in their flooring. As Hickory stains vary readily, light stains are effective in reducing the color variation.

It is important to realize that Hickory responds quickly to humidity changes. When installing your hickory wood floor, ensure that the wood floor has room to expand and contract or it may buckle.

Hickory wood reclaimed from old barns, factories and buildings is also being used to manufacture floor planks for residential and commercial projects. The old wood has an old-world charm and individuality and floors made of this reclaimed hardwood hold up well in heavy traffic areas.

Extremely tough and resilient, even textured, quite hard and only moderately heavy, Hickorys make a good choice in hardwood flooring. Check out Mohawk Flooring for great deals or click the link below to find some of the best deals on the web today