Hardwood flooring creates an attractive, luxurious atmosphere in your living space. The rich colors, warm texture and solid durability come together to provide a foundation for any room. Consider how the right wood flooring accessories bring this combination to another level, and allow the true beauty of your hardwood floor to shine.
| Flush-in Bull Nose Piece for Wood Stairs |
Some homeowners hesitate to invest in wood flooring accessories, but these elements represent only a fraction of the overall budget. Check out this list of three essential accessories, including their cost, importance and availability.
Vent Covers
Mechanical ducts run through your home, with heating vents and fresh air vents in various locations. Floor vents do not need to break up the smooth visual created by your hardwood floors.
Avoid the standard builder-style floor vent covers. Hardwood flooring manufacturers carry a wide range of covers in colors and tones to match wood floor styles. Look for prefinished vent covers in bamboo strand, maple, hickory, Acacia Asian walnut, American and Brazilian cherry, Brazilian teak cumaru and Brazilian cherry Jatoba.
Wood flooring retailers also carry unfinished floor vent covers to allow for customized color.
Measure the vent opening carefully before purchasing your covers, and try to view the floor colors in your home for a true comparison.
Transitions
Moving from hardwood flooring to carpets, tile or vinyl is inevitable, and transitions help to make this smooth and attractive. You can find a wide range of transitions on the market, but try to avoid the cheap, unattractive brands that create an eyesore.
Good quality transitions match the tone of your wood flooring, both in color and texture. You can find sleek threshold pieces that finish the edge of your wood floor and transition cleanly to carpet or another style of flooring. Ask your flooring retailer about the availability of these products in your preferred wood.
Transitioning between two levels of flooring presents another challenge. Hardwood flooring may need to be built up with a subfloor, creating an uneven transition that requires a special threshold. Two types of reducer transitions exist for this purpose:
- Flush-in Style – this low profile threshold piece finishes level with the wood flooring and slopes down to the lower floor
- Overlap – this threshold overlaps the wood floor and slopes to the lower floor, providing more of an obstruction but also working with more styles and brands of wood flooring
Bull Nose for Stairs
Wood stairs create an incredibly beautiful focal point in your home. The railing, risers and face of the stairs combine into am artistic feature. Finish off the edges of your stairs with quality bull nose pieces to maintain the beauty of this home feature.
Similar to the transitions mentioned above, bull nose accessories come in flush and overlap styles. Designers seem to prefer the flush bull nose, as it creates a one-piece look when coupled with the tread piece. An overlap style bull nose looks more like trim, but will also create a clean, beautiful edge.
Be sure to budget for these three essential wood flooring accessories to maintain a beautiful atmosphere in your living space. Vent covers, transitions pieces and stair bull nose pieces finish off your hardwood flooring and help you to achieve the high end look you desire.