One of the more recent trends for flooring, hand-scraped hardwood gives a floor an aged character. Several product lines offer hand-scraped solid and engineered hardwoods, prefinished and unfinished. Even hand-scraped laminate flooring is possible. If you are considering hand-scraped hardwood flooring for your home, keep in mind that various techniques are used to create an aged and distressed appearance.
Types of hand-scraped hardwood include:
- Time Worn Aged. With this type of hand-scraped flooring, the hardwood is distressed from age. A darker stain, highlighting the grain, and contouring are added to enhance the distressed appearance.
- Wire Brushed. Wire brushed accents the grain of the hardwood and removes the sapwood at the same time.
- Antique. Similar to time worn aged, this type of hand-scraped flooring uses a lower grade of hardwood.
- Hand Sculpted. This technique creates a smoother distressed appearance.
- French Bleed. This distressing technique is used to create deeper beveled edges, and the joints of the floor are highlighted with a darker stain for emphasis.
- Pegged. Decorative only, pegged hand-scraped flooring should not be fastened directly to a subfloor.
- Hand Hewn and Rough Sawn. This technique results in the roughest appearance for hand-scraped flooring.
- Custom Unfinished. Once unfinished hardwood is installed, a professional comes in to custom distress the floor through bleaching, pickeling, beating with chains, or fastening with antique nails. After the distressing is done, the hardwood is finished.
What happens when you want to refinish the floor in the future? Hand-scraped hardwood involves a different approach. To keep the distressed look, a floor abrader should be used to just take off the finish without diminishing the unique and aged appearance. If, however, you want to return to the look of standard hardwood, some distressed flooring can be sanded flat. Be careful when sanding flat engineered flooring. Depending upon the thickness of the wear layer, the distressing could go all the way through to the next ply.
Contact Hurst Hardwoods
Convenient Online Ordering 24 Hours / 7 Days a Week
888-704-8778