"What's under the carpet?" home buyers want to know. Implicit in the question is the answer they're hoping for: hardwood floors.
According to a recent national survey of real estate brokers, homes with hardwood floors sell for more money and faster than those without. If you're planning to remodel or add on, a wood floor could well be a wise investment, not to mention a beauty to behold for as long as you live there.
To capitalize on its investment potential and its aesthetic appeal, don't settle for a one-color wood floor -- or even a one-wood floor.
Thanks to new technology, new stains and finishes, and new attitudes among designers, architects, artists and flooring contractors, you can personalize a wood floor to your heart's content.
Think location: With the exception, perhaps, of the basement, there's not a room in the house where a wood floor would be inappropriate. Because of moisture-resistant urethane finishes, that now includes bathrooms and kitchens. Of course, wood is not as impervious to water and soil as, say, ceramic tile. But, then, that's what bathmats are for.
Think color: The white- washed, bleached and pickled finishes of recent years have taken traditional dark wood beyond the pale. Now, thanks to aniline dyes and pigmented stains, you can have a wood floor in a nonwood color -- pine-needle green, slate gray, mandarin red or any other hue you can think of.
Think pattern: Row after row of boards all the same size can produce an attractive floor. But there are options. Install the floorboards on the diagonal or create a herringbone effect. Use boards of random widths -- 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 inches -- to achieve a look that is more rustic and less rigidly formal.
Think detail: If an overall pattern is too much for you, add some delicate ornament with wood inlays. Inlaid borders can put an ornamental frame around a wood floor.
You can make a border by using different stains on individual pieces of wood or even by using different woods.
Traditionalists may want to choose a classic border pattern, such as a Greek key design. Those with more contemporary tastes may want only a pencil-thin line to add a fine detail.
Think finish: For some people, there's nothing quite so glamorous and elegant as a wood floor polished to a high gleam. But low-gloss and no-gloss finishes are now available and finding a following. They tend to show dust and scuff marks less than polished floors.
