Hickory has become a popular choice for hardwood flooring. Homeowners, designers and architects have been specifying the use of hickory for a wide variety of reasons. To better understand if hickory floors are the right choice for your project, let’s take a deeper look at the unique properties and benefits of the wood itself.
Wood flooring made from hickory is one of the toughest and most durable floors available. While there are lots of wood species that are available and work well as flooring, hickory is by far the hardest and most durable of all domestic woods. The hickory tree is the second hardest species in North America, ranking at 1,820 on the Janka scale. Commonly used to make baseball bats and golf clubs, it’s a wood with incredible strength, density and resistance to wear and tear, making it one tough floor that won’t scratch or dent easily.
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The grain pattern found in hickory flooring planks combines a wide range of brown, red and tan color tones with lots of natural character. This wide range of colors combined with mineral streaks and knots makes hickory a sophisticated wood that has a slightly antique appearance that lends itself to an authentic look.
Rustic, traditional and modern spaces are all candidates for hickory floors. With enough color variation and character to feel natural and clean, hickory is a great wood to finish clear. Options for adding color range from browns to golds and even whites, and can be used to accentuate the character of the wood while making the color more consistent and even. Adding a white treatment will make the floor more consistent and pale, perfect for modern settings.
Easy to maintain, hickory is very durable and will not show wear and tear like many other wood species will. Lightly damp mopping weekly or as needed combined with dust mopping or vacuuming to keep dust and debris off of the floor is really all that is needed to keep a hickory floor in good shape and make sure it lasts for many generations. Sanding and refinishing is not needed as frequently as with other species of wood simply because the wood is so dense and resistant to wear.
Most of the hickory flooring commercially available is made with narrow planks and lengths from as short as 8 inch to the longest planks being 4 feet long at best, creating a busy floor that looks unnatural. Using wide widths and long lengths adds to the character of the flooring and shows the natural grain pattern well, also reducing the number of visible seams in the floor. The use of wide widths and long lengths also has the benefit of making rooms feel larger and less cluttered, creating a better overall look and feel.
Light and bright, hickory floors are a great choice with natural character that is a hallmark of this tough wood.
Natural hickory is an excellent choice for stylish homeowners with unique decor, and for traditional homeowners who enjoy neutral tones. This flooring option is timeless and will be just as on-trend 20 years from now, so it’s a smart investment for the future of your home too. Here are just a few options for hickory flooring and finishes available.
Traditional Hickory Flooring
Prefinished or unfinished, traditional hickory flooring is a naturally beautiful wood and a classic choice indeed, combining all of the color and character found in this majestic wood species.
Rustic Hickory Flooring
With the same color tones and grain pattern character as traditional hickory, rustic hickory takes things one step further adding original milling marks to create a surface texture.
Hickory Stick – Sanded Smooth
The rich brown tones of hickory stick are enhanced and made more consistent, adding to the warmth and authenticity of the floor. Natural variation in the lighter sapwood to the darker heartwood is accentuated and highlighted using a reactive treatment that is complimented by a lightly brushed texture and has a soft look and feel.
Fresh Garlic – Lightly Brushed
Fresh garlic adds a hint of white pigment that helps even out the color tone of the wood and gives it a modern feel. Muted white tones with a lightly brushed surface texture make fresh garlic hickory a very soft feeling floor that fits well in many spaces from traditional to modern.
Hickory Wood Flooring Options
Hickory flooring is a great choice in a wide variety of spaces and will last for generations. With many color and texture options available as well as the possibility to create a custom bespoke hickory floors to your exact design specifications, the possibilities are almost endless. For more inspiration and design ideas, view our project gallery or contact an expert at Elmwood Reclaimed Timber. We’re happy to help you find the right hickory flooring for your next design project!
