The 3 Best Types Of Hardwood Flooring If You Have Small Children
Do you want hardwood floors, but think they may not "get along" well with your children? At first glance, hardwood floors do seem risky to install in a place where children live. Kids can put scratches in hardwood flooring in a variety of ways, as well as make messes of all kinds on them. However, hardwood floors are actually the best kind of floors to have when you have small children. They are easy to clean...much easier than carpeting...and can be put through the wringer with the worst possible treatment for decades before they start to look worn. On the other hand, carpeting often needs to be replaced frequently when children are in the house.
Some types of hardwood flooring are better for kids than others. The best kinds are:
Australian Cypress
This exotic wood is very hard, which makes it resistant to scratches. If it does happen to get scratched, the wavy, knotty grain tends to hide any damage very well. The area around the knots may be susceptible to chipping, but usually only if heavy furniture or something similar is dragged across it. Children are unlikely to cause this kind of damage to an Australian cypress floor.
Maple
Maple comes in a variety of colors ranging from white to dark brown. This makes any messes easy to conceal on the darker colors, until you get around to cleaning them. Maple is also very resistant to showing signs of wear and scratches. It is relatively easy to obtain and inexpensive, because maple grows throughout the United States.
Bamboo
Though it is technically a grass, bamboo is used frequently as a hardwood flooring. It has a hard texture that makes it look and feel more like wood than grass, so it is easy to call it a hardwood floor and use it that way. In fact, it is excellent to use as flooring in a home with small children because it is extremely hard and durable. Even tough dog claws will have a hard time scratching up a bamboo floor, much less anything a child could do to it.
It is stain resistant, too. If you are using it as kitchen flooring when you have infants or small children who are likely to make messes, those messes clean up with great ease. Bamboo is also relatively affordable, because it grows so quickly. It is easily replaced when harvested, so there is always a plentiful supply of it. This also makes it an environmentally friendly choice in flooring, as well.
Distressed Wood
According to TheyCallMeMom.com, distressed wood is a great choice for a home with kids. As long as the wood is distressed, it doesn't matter what type it is. The distressed look makes it easy to hide any damage the kids cause to the wood.
Because the wood has already been scraped in the distressing process, scratches and scrapes added by kids will just blend in. A particularly bad scrape can easily be hidden on distressed wood by simply using a stain pen on it.
Conclusion
Hardwood floors are terrific for children for a variety of reasons. They are naturally warm in the winter, because wood is a good insulator, so children can play on them as much as they like even when the weather is very cold. They are also perfect for children who have allergies because they don't attract dust and pollen that needs to be constantly cleaned from them like with carpeting. Add in the fact that it is a cinch to clean with a damp mop, and you have the ideal flooring for any home with small children in it.
For more information about flooring options, visit http://www.nationalcarpetmilloutlet.com.
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