To completely gain all the benefits that wood flooring can bring to you for personal enjoyment and increased home value, knowledgeable design and planning are necessary before any purchase of materials for a DIY project or professional (often a better choice for solid wood and real wood flooring) installation. It is necessary to understand the advantages/disadvantages of the types of wood flooring available in today's marketplace.

The most common choices and the terminology you will encounter real wooden flooring, natural wooden flooring, solid wooden flooring, engineered/laminate wood flooring, and for better or worse - cheap wood flooring. Unfortunately, perhaps the first thing a consumer should realise is that the terms real, natural, engineered/laminate flooring, and solid wood flooring are often used somewhat arbitrarily.

In addition, the term "hardwood flooring" has, for many suppliers become to mean only white oak that can be stained and finished to the buyer's wishes. Is oak a bad choice? The answer is "No!" Correctly stained and finished, oak flooring solid wooden flooring is an excellent choice for its durability and the vast of suppliers eager for your business and the price competition that results. More simply stated for solid (non-laminate/engineered) real wood flooring), oak is often the most common and usually least expensive choice. Is it the only choice? Consider:

• What is hard wood flooring?
• Why is oak the most popular hardwood flooring?
• Why is softwood flooring considered a poor choice?

There are hardwood alternatives such as walnut, hickory, pecan, chestnut, and butternut (in fact almost any nut wood). There is hard maple, red oak, durable Canadian spruce, and Norwegian pine. Most are available but expensive as solid wood planking. Softwoods, if properly maintained and placed, include the beauties of teak (water resistant and common in deck furniture), cherry, birch, ash, mahogany, and even cedar.

All that being said, hardwoods and more so softwoods are an expensive investment regardless of your choice. Yes, they will add great value to your home and often it is possible for a very good DIY homeowner to install a real wood (hard or soft) floor.

Enter, engineered or laminate wood flooring. A first point to make is this unless very poorly made is not cheap wood flooring and it can also provide enjoyment in terms of your pleasure in venting your designer goals with the ability to use facsimiles of expensive hardwoods an softwood without their expense.

It can be durable and is resistant to staining and fading and is easy to install (in fact it is often specifically sold as a DIY product). However, it cannot be refinished and adds little if any long-term value to your home.