The Many Attractive Features of Wire Brushed Flooring

Nothing adds to the feeling of warmth in a room like natural wood flooring. There are many people who savor the atmosphere created by wood floors so much that they choose to take things to an elevated level by purchasing specially processed flooring materials designed to enhance their experience. These materials include custom plank flooring stock that mimics the character and aesthetics of floor boards found in the grand old castles of Europe.

A significant new trend in the use of natural wood flooring in residential homes has recently developed. This moddy and voguish style concept involves the installation of wire brushed wooden floors where you would expect traditional oak floor boards or carpeting to go. Wire brushed floors create a calm, tranquil appearance that emphasizes the character, color variation structure of the material that it is made of. The wire brush treatment gives hardwood a very unique look and texture. The process involves scraping the surface of the wood with stiff wire brushes that strip away and remove the soft wood surface fibers imparting on the plank a powerful grainy effect that is not only visible on inspection, but is quite obvious to the touch. The overall effect of the wire bush technique is to highlight the natural richness of the wood by opening up the grain and showing off a rich antique/weathered look.

Interior designers who favor wire brushed flooring like to choose the widest and longest planks available to them in order to replicate the experience of walking on floor boards that were crafted by artisans from a bygone era. To perfect the look, the wooden planks used to make wire brushed flooring stock are as part of the process hand scraped, hand sanded, and finished by hand.

In contrast to traditional oak flooring which is protected by varnish, lacquer, or polyurethane as a finish, wire brushed floors are instead most commonly treated with Silk Oil which penetrates into the wood preserving the look and texture of the natural wood grain. Polyurethane provides a strong protective coating on a floor surface, but it cannot deliver that warm and satisfying feeling that an oil finished wood floor can, and that is evidenced by the sound it makes when you tread upon it. Moreover; a hard, reflective surface will show all the scratches and dents on your floor making it a chore to maintain. A natural wood floor with its exposed grain will be forgiving with respect to the inevitable minor dents and scratches it sustains, and for the most part you will never notice them. As for maintenance, traditional oak flooring requires periodic stripping of the surface finish along with machine sanding before it can be treated again, while oil treated natural wood floor boards are very easy to care for. While the oil finish needs to be reapplied ever few years, it can be done without removing anything from the surface, making the process a manageable do it yourself project.