Unfinished Hardwood Flooring 

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The Endless Debate of Pre-Finished or Unfinished

There is a constant debate between which is better:  pre-finished hardwood floors, or unfinished hardwood flooring?  There are people who claim that pre-finished hardwood pieces are never as uniform as installing unfinished hardwood flooring to a home.  The primary reason is because after installation, unfinished hardwood flooring has to be sanded and stained prior to completion.  Once installed on the floor of your home, the sanding process will take care of any irregularities in height or depth, and the staining process will perfect the uniformity in color.  Pre-finished flooring, on the other hand, comes pre-finished and what you install is basically what you get, short of redoing the entire floor.

As far as popularity is concerned, pre-finished hardwood flooring has gained on unfinished hardwood flooring due to convenience.  Once installed, you don’t need to go through the hassle of sanding, staining, buffing and coating.  Basically, you have much more work to do post-installation with unfinished hardwood flooring than with flooring where much of the labor and messy work is finished at the manufacturers. 

However, unfinished hardwood flooring gives you the control over the final pigment, shine and grain of the floor in your home.  Whether you do it yourself or hire contractors, you have some say in how the floor is finished, and can decide as it’s being done that you need it changed or not.  When you are planning to do separate areas of the house and different times but want the floors to look uniform, unfinished hardwood flooring may be your wisest choice because finding the exact same tone of the pre-finished flooring may be next to impossible.  You may just end up with two rooms with different colored flooring, albeit minor.

Overall, unfinished hardwood flooring is considered more stable, mostly due to the sanding done on site.  For large spaces with a lot of foot traffic, this stability can mean years of difference when it comes to durability and longevity.  This stability and the previously mentioned uniformity and customizability are the main perks to installing unfinished hardwood flooring, even at the cost of considerably extended installation time and more mess in your home for a few days.  Also, unfinished hardwood flooring has many more choices than pre-finished flooring.  If it’s a specific wood you are looking for, it may not even come finished, and the only option will be to buy unfinished hardwood flooring in that wood. 

Yes, it will take longer. Yes, it will create more of a mess, and is much more labor-intensive than pre-finished flooring.  Yes, it will cost more because whether you hire contractors or do it yourself, the extra tools and machines will be needed in order to finish your floors.

But in the end, installing unfinished hardwood flooring gives you a customized look to your home that is truly unique, and you will know that a lot of work and dedication went into each and every inch of that flooring that will surely provide years of beauty and comfort.