Keeping the Hardwood Floor Beautiful

Floorings are factory finished and protected with several layers of technically advanced high quality UV Cured Urethane Finish. This finish is tough, durable, smooth and easy to maintain. The Manufacturer recommends Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner and Bona Microfiber Mops for maintaining UV Cured Flooring.

SPIKED HEELS!

Did you know, 125 pound lady wearing high heel shoes can exert as much as 3500 pounds of pressure per square inch. The size of the indentations are usually 3/16″ to 1/2″, thus the pressure on the wood floor may exceed 7,000 pounds.

Use of Mats at Exterior Entries

Place mats with stiff bristles at all exterior entries to the house. A softer area rug or mat should be used on the room side of exterior doors. They will help collect the dirt, sand, grit and other substances such as oil, asphalt or driveway sealer that can otherwise be tracked onto the Floor.

Read a full list of Do’s and Don’ts on this hardwood collection on the official Brentwood Hills Collection website.

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• The Construction is Waterproof Solid Polymer Core (SPC)
  • SPC flooring (solid polymer core sometimes known as rigid core, stone plastic composite or even MLF) is one of the better quality luxury vinyl products and has captured the imaginations of consumers because it is waterproof, offers great performance and outstanding visuals, all at affordable prices.
• The Underlayment is Attached Premium 1.5mm IXPE Foam
  • IXPE is a premium acoustical underlayment made up of sound dampening high-performance cross-linked foam with an overlapping film for extra moisture protection at its joints. The extra fine foam offers advanced moisture protections and shock absorption.
• The Finish is Ceramic Bead
  • It is primarily small ceramic beads that are combined with the polyurethane coating to offer a high resistance to scuffing below the surface. The beads perform a wear resistance function thus reducing the erosion of the polyurethane which gives it the floor shine.

EIR is a method used by manufacturers to create the appearance of wood grain similar to real hardwood. We recommend flooring that underwent the EIR process, since it intensifies the texture, depth, and appearance of the floor.

AC4 Class 32 Flooring Rating

The AC4 Class 32 Flooring Rating is rated durable for domestic and general trafficked commercial spaces such as offices, cafes, salons and boutiques or residential spaces. This makes this rating very essential when browsing floors.

Layer Thickness Tips

Pay attention to the wear layer thickness in relation to the space it occupies.

• Residential projects or households, heavy foot traffic, pets should stay in the 12-mil-20 mil.
• For commercial projects, stick with a 20-mil wear layer for the best protection possible.

When choosing a vinyl floor, you need to do your research and compare your options within your conditions. Will there be heavy foot traffic through the area? Will your family and pets occupy this space? Do you prefer for the room temperature to be below 70 degrees Fahrenheit? Hardwood vs. engineered? All of these details are essential when choosing the right floor for you!

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Wood is a natural product and as such expands and contracts with changes in atmospheric conditions. Solid wood floors take in moisture (expand) when there is a high level of humidity in the air and let that moisture go (contracts) when the humidity reduces. 

Humidity Tips

Depending on the area, hardwood floors should be kept at a relative humidity level of 40% – 55% to ensure successful long-term performance of your wood flooring. But does this phenomenon only happen to hardwood floors? What about engineered wood floors? While engineered hardwood is more moisture-resistant than solid wood, it does still expand. This means that when purchasing or deciding on the type of floor for your new home or commercial space, the consumer should be conscious of the external environment and how it may affect your floors.

Watch Out for Winter!

The climate should always be in question when thinking about humidity and moisture in our home. Depending on your home area, under normal conditions,  humid summers rarely have a negative effect on wood floors. Winter, however, is another story. Not only is there less humidity in the colder air, but our heating systems and furnaces tend to dry out the air inside our homes. In short—winter is the time when damage to your hardwood floors is most likely.

Now that you know the facts, feel free to browse our premium-luxury hardwood collections! All flooring shown is a part of our Modern Deluxe Collection, available to browse now on our website: www.hfdesignllc.com For more premium, luxury flooring options, make sure to browse today by clicking the link!

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Did You Know?

A majority of the flooring sold in North America today is made overseas. However, manufacturing practices and environmental standards do not mimic those of top quality manufacturers like HF Design. Therefore, environmental concern has brought to the forefront, the need to have your products tested and trusted. For example, if you are using a pre-finished wood floor, you want to make sure it meets or exceeds the guidelines for low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), which negatively impacts indoor air health quality. 

Floral Tan and Fog Mist from the Cortona Maxx Collection.

Why is this important?

Exposure to VOCs themselves can cause a variety of health effects, including irritation to the eyes, nose, and throat; headaches and the loss of coordination; nausea; and damage to the liver, kidneys, or central nervous system. This causes environmental concern surrounding how distributors can ensure the safety of the individuals living on these floors daily.

Luckily here at HF Design, consumers have the option to shop with flooring that bears the FloorScore® IAQ Certification,  GREENGUARD seal, and is CARB II Compliant.

FloorScore

FloorScore® is the most recognized indoor air quality (IAQ) certification standard for hard surface flooring materials, adhesives, and under-layments. This certification helps promotes safer, healthier work and home environments.

GREENGUARD

The GREENGUARD Gold Certification standard includes health-based criteria for additional chemicals. Products need to have low VOC emissions levels to help ensure that products are acceptable for use in environments like school

s and healthcare facilities. Furthermore, GREENGUARD Certification ensure that products have low chemical emissions, including VOCs such as formaldehyde. These chemicals are responsible for the scent you might notice on mattresses, your baby’s new crib, or new flooring.

CARB II

A product holding the CARB Phase 2 certification signifies that the product releases a low amount of formaldehyde. CARB2 is a certification process instituted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to reduce formaldehyde emissions and protect the public from airborne toxic contaminants. The CARB phase 2 certification signifies that the product releases a low enough amount of formaldehyde to be considered safe.

Help Us Commit to a New Tomorrow!

These certifications are just a few that demonstrate our commitment to the health and environmental concern of homeowners in North America. Our efforts in minimizing our carbon footprint have been successful. Incorporating responsible environmental practices in all aspects of our operations has led us to providing the safest floors for our consumers! Browse our Hardwood and Laminate floors today!

Click here for more.

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DIY on the Rise

Are you more of a ‘do-it-yourselfer’? Or you’d rather have your projects done for you? This is what separates the DIY crowd from the average audience. The DIY culture has risen in the midst of COVID-19 March 2020. Then trending popularity, proving to be cost effective while providing hobbies for many to keep busy during global quarantine. Growing weary of letting strangers in their home as well as going into stores, consumers feared possibly contracting the virus they knew little about. 

The New Generation is Independent

Companies have noticed that the DIY audience consists of particularly young households, which are more likely to use online resources. And while the DIY trend has proven to be useful, it is important to remember that flooring can become a tedious task and you save much more time allowing professionals to handle the job rather than leaving it in inexperienced hands. A Bank of America poll reported that more than 70 percent of homeowners planned to take on home improvement projects last year.

You Can Get Hurt! Just pay the people.

The DIY trend may also be a liability issue, as different tools become necessary for different floors. Professional preparation and skill is needed to execute any installation, especially flooring. The younger generation of homeowners are provided the option of DIY, however older generations do not favor online help or instructions, which would make the task more of a costing-liability.

To waive any injuries or wasted time trying to do it yourself, most would be better off hiring a team to help out. This will provide you with a peace of mind. The team will get the job done faster than following online steps. Further installation guidelines for our floors can be found here.

Shop Smarter, Not Harder

You may save a lot of time, energy and a couple of bucks by letting flooring specialists install your floors. You should save DIY for another occasion, not to install hardwood floors. In the meantime, check out our Hardwood Floors and we can help find a retailer near you to professionally install your floors. Click here.

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Flooring is a crucial part of any interior design and can easily make or break your space. While our first interaction with a space is visual, the first physical contact a person will have with your space is the flooring. 

Foundation

It serves as a foundation to your design and can ultimately impact its overall success. Since the floor is underfoot and takes up so much real estate in any space, it has a significant impact on the aesthetic of your home. If you want to change the look of a room, change the floors. Flooring can make your space look instantly cooler, warmer, larger, smaller, more intimate, cozier and more luxe. 

The flooring often sets the tone and feeling of a room either as the dominant feature or as a neutral setting for furnishing and decorating elements. It not only contributes to a room’s appearance but also affects comfort.

TIP: Match the furniture to the floors.

Contrasts are beautiful, but dark furniture can make a light floor lose its purpose in this scenario, so consider matching light floors with furniture in a complementary hue.

The choice of mood or feeling within the space is up to the homeowner’s discretion. Therefore when making a decision on whether or not one may want tile, hardwood, LVT, laminate, or stone, it is important that the homeowners take into account the many aesthetics that exist within interior design.

All photos seen are apart of our Seacliff Estate Collection.

If interested in more styles and information regarding this collection, you can find all the details you need in our Seacliff Brochure.

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The Value

Today’s floors are expected to handle the wear and tear of a family, pets, environmental conditions, etc. When choosing a new floor for your family home, it is very essential to focus on flooring that is able to perform very well for years on end with little maintenance. Not losing its durability or luster by remaining undamaged from spills, scuffs, scratches, stains is a standard for homes nowadays, especially with high foot-traffic.

Why Laminate?

Laminate flooring is able to provide very high durability and performance. The demand is skyrocketing as performance becomes a top consideration for consumers. This demand has grown since the COVID-19 outbreak, as consumers are working from home, kids were forced to get used to a “remote learning” curriculum, as well as play indoors away from others. So it became very essential for flooring products and installations to have high-duty surfaces to live on.

The consumer is now prioritizing floors that are durable, low-maintenance and enduring. Gratefully, today’s laminate products are up to the task, offering excellent performance without sacrificing style. Laminate flooring was designed to perform extremely and be scratch, scuff and dent resistant. This makes laminate flooring ideal for people with pets and all that comes with that, or active kids playing on the floor or rolling their toys.

Waterproof too?!

The durability of laminate flooring is so prominent, that the move to make waterproof/resistant options highly increased as well. This allows consumers to consider laminate flooring for their bathrooms, kitchens, and other high-moisture, damp areas. Having these functional attributes while maintaining a wood-engineered beautiful surface, laminate flooring is becoming increasingly popular amongst today’s homeowners.

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