New Featured Product: Engineered Tigerwood!

We love tigerwood hardwood flooring. It is a vibrant, colorful, and durable exotic hardwood that looks great in any room of the house. So imagine our excitement when we received a beautiful new variety of engineered tigerwood flooring! Take a look for yourself:

Gorgeous, right?

Tigerwood flooring features highly distinctive reddish-brown tones and prominent black striping with varying thickness. It has an irregular interlocked grain pattern that nicely complements the striping and colors. It is also one of toughest hardwoods you can find. It has a Janka hardness rating of 1850 and a density of 660 KG/m3, so you can trust it to take a lot of foot traffic and still look good. Its density and hardness also make it naturally resistant to wood rot, boring insects, other common types of hardwood problems.

Visit the Fantastic Floor website to learn more about engineered Tigerwood hardwood flooring, or call us today at 1-888-448-9663.

Frequently Asked Questions: What Wood Can Be Installed Over Concrete?

Q: What kind of hardwood flooring can I install over a concrete slab?

A: In the old days of hardwood flooring, concrete slabs did not make a suitable sub-floor. Even today most manufacturers do not recommend using solid hardwood floors over a concrete slab. However, most engineered and longstrip engineered plank floors can be used over concrete. Hooray!

Engineered planks and strip wood floors can be glued directly to a clean, dry, well-cured concrete floor. Certain types of engineered hardwood flooring can be glued at the tongue/groove intersection and floated over concrete, provided there is a special padding in place. There are even new varieties of hybrid engineered flooring that can be floated over a concrete floor without glue - the tongue-and-groove locking system holds the planks in place.

Of course, it's important to talk with the manufacturer of the specific engineered hardwood flooring you're using. It's also important to note that concrete slabs need to be fully cured for at least 60 days before installing hardwood flooring over them. Additionally, your flooring should be properly acclimated before you begin the installation process.

To learn more about installing engineered hardwood flooring over concrete slabs visit our Frequently Asked Questions page, or call one of our flooring professionals at 1-888-448-9663.

Engineered flooring such as this engineered Amendoim hardwood flooring. can be easily installed over an existing concrete slab.

Fantastic Floor Presents: Brazilian Cherry

This week's installment of Fantastic Floor Presents features a very popular species we have on sale right now: Brazilian Cherry!

Also known as Jatoba, Brazilian Cherry is the most popular exotic hardwood species in America, and for good reason. It is beautiful, tough, and if acclimated and installed properly, can last a lifetime.

The first thing that attracts people to Brazilian Cherry hardwood flooring is its appearance. Brazilian Cherry features gorgeous reddish-brown heartwood that is streaked with dark black striking, giving the wood amazing contrast and depth without sacrificing versatility. The wood's color and striping complement many interior design schemes, from a more classic, lighter decor to a darker, more sophisticated style.

Brazilian Cherry hardwood flooring is also very durable. It has a Janka hardness rating of 2,350 pounds, almost twice that of Red Oak, and it has a density of 800 KG/m3. It is also one of the most dimensionally stable exotic hardwoods you can find, meaning there is less chance of the floor boards bending or warping if properly acclimated and installed.

Yes, we love Brazilian Cherry, and we want you to love it too! That's why we've lowered prices on some of our most popular varieties of Brazilian Cherry hardwood flooring, with certain styles as low as $2.99/SF! Visit our website to view all of our outstanding Brazilian Cherry lines, or give us a call at 888-448-9663 today!

Fantastic Floor Presents: Galaxy Mars Fumed White Oak

'Tis the season for holiday cheer, and our new white oak flooring product is as cheery as they come!

The Galaxy Mars Fumed White Oak Flooring from Allwood is one of the most unique, attention-grabbing flooring products available at Fantastic Floor. Drenched in rich browns and burgundies and flecked with light red glitter, this product is perfect for rec rooms, dining rooms, and swanky commercial purposes.

The look of this white oak flooring variety is just one of its great qualities - it is also one of the most durable domestic woods we carry. It has a Janka hardness of 1,360 pounds and comes with a 25 year finish warranty. And because it is an engineered product it has enhanced dimensional stability over traditional solid oak flooring.

Learn more about Galaxy Mars Fumed White Oak Flooring at www.Fantastic-Floor.com or by giving us a call at 1-888-448-9663.

Frequently Asked Questions: Unfinished, or Prefinished?

Q: I am remodeling my house and am considering refinishing parts of my hardwood floor. Should I use prefinished or unfinished hardwood flooring?

A: Both prefinished and unfinished hardwood flooring have their advantages and disadvantages. The answer to this question really depends on what kind of flooring you currently have in your home and how much access you want in the room(s) being remodeled.

If you are trying to match an existing hardwood floor, your best bet is unfinished. This allows you to stain the new boards to match the current floor exactly. However, onsite finishing results in a lot of dust, dirt, and noise, and you may not have access to that area of your home during the finishing process.

Choosing prefinished flooring means you get to avoid the hassles that come from onsite finishing. However, it also means your new boards are less likely to match your current floor. This isn't a big deal if you are only replacing a few boards, but if you need to replace half a room the mismatch could be distracting.

Unfinished Amendoim hardwood flooring available at www.Fantastic-Floor.com.

Learn more about prefinished and unfinished hardwood flooring by calling 1-888-448-9663.

This Just In! White Oak French Connection (ooh, la la!)

Earlier in the week we ran a post espousing the virtues of oak flooring - it's strength, durability, versatility, etc - and now we have a beautiful new line of white oak flooring in stock! What timing!

The French Connection is a beautiful new line of white oak flooring that has a wire-brushed texture and a beautiful oil finish, giving it a bold and aged appearance. The dark colors and tight grain pattern make this oak flooring a distinctive addition to any room in your home. The boards are available in a number of different sizes, and for a limited time Fantastic Floor is offering this amazing new product line at a great price.

Learn more about the new White Oak French Connection line by visiting www.Fantastic-Floor.com

We're Solid As Oak - But How Solid Is Oak, Anyway?

If you've been on the Fantastic Floor website lately, you may have noticed one of our catchphrases: "We're solid as oak". And if you're familiar with oak flooring already, you probably know why we take pride in that statement. But we also understand that not everyone is familiar with the ins-and-outs of the hardwood flooring industry. That's why we decided to explain just exactly what makes oak flooring so solid, and why we're confident in drawing the comparison.

Hardness:
Oak has been a domestic flooring standard in the U.S. for years, and for good reason: It is strong enough to withstand years of heavy foot traffic and still look great. One of the reasons for this is its Janka hardness rating. Janka hardness is a way to measure how much pressure a species of wood can withstand before denting or giving in to the weight. The Janka hardness rating of oak flooring is between 1,290 lbs and 1,360 lbs, depending on whether you are using red oak flooring or white oak flooring. This hardness has served as the industry standard for years.

Dependability:
Not only is oak flooring hard, it is also very durable. It is one of the densest domestic hardwoods you can buy, and if properly acclimated, it will resist bending and warping for years. This means you can count on a new oak floor to be around for as long as you and your family need it.

Versatility:
Not only is oak flooring strong and long-lasting, but it also is a beautiful complement to almost every design scheme. You can choose from red oak, which has subtle red and brown heartwood and a consistent grain, or white oak, which is full of white and yellow tones that give it a crisp, clean feel. Both varieties nicely match almost any existing decor and are perfect for homeowners who are expecting to change their home design scheme sometime in the future.

Combined, the versatility, dependability, and strength of oak flooring makes it a solid choice for any homeowner. Likewise, Fantastic Floor offers versatile flooring choices, dependable products, and the strongest customer service team you can find online. Visit www.Fantastic-Floor.com and you'll see why we pride ourselves in being as solid as oak.