Top 5 Flooring Choices – Portland 2020
The past decade has seen a move away from carpeting and toward easy-to-clean, hard-surface flooring. In particular, hardwood flooring is huge in 2020, and products that mimic the look (and sometimes the feel) of hardwood floors are a close second. New advances in graphic tiles, vinyl and engineered lumber have embraced the wood-look trend, but are these products the safe and green options that buyers are looking for? Let’s take a look at this year’s Top 5 flooring materials, and how they stack up for your home value.
- Genuine Wood
Portland, like many places in the Pacific Northwest, has a long-term love affair with wood building materials. Hardwood floors are the basic definition of a classic Portland home, no matter the style, and some are many decades old and still going strong. The advantages of wood are many: Beautiful appearance, non-toxic (especially if it’s naturally finished), great feel under the feet. And although this figure comes from a wood flooring industry association and therefore could be a little skewed, our real estate agents agree when they say wood floors can add up to 10% to your home value.
2. Luxury Vinyl
Luxury vinyl flooring comes in planks, tiles or sheets, and can mimic just about any type of material, from stone and tile to genuine wood. It has pretty much replaced laminate as a versatile, waterproof flooring choice, with visual effects you have to see to believe! It also can be installed with cork underlayment for a friendlier feel than tile. However, luxury vinyl has the disadvantage of a relatively short lifespan of 10-20 years. It can also emit a high level of toxic fumes (VOCs) when first installed, cannot be reused or recycled, and is generally not considered an eco-friendly choice.
3. Engineered Vinyl Planks
Taking the technology of luxury vinyl and applying it to engineered hardwood planks, EVPs are the hot flooring material of 2020. They come in a variety of wood finishes and can reduce some of the environmental impacts of luxury vinyl. Most flooring retailers recommend Coretec Plus, which is a higher-quality product made by pressing together multiple layers of vinyl material around a recycled-wood-and-bamboo core.
4. Classic Tile
Trend alert: Black-and-white “subway” tile for bathroom floors is big, and getting bigger in 2020! Whether made of stone, ceramic or porcelain (which is a type of ceramic that is more impervious to water), tile is a perennial favorite flooring material. It’s non-toxic, easy to clean — even easier if the tiles are large-format, reducing the need for grout — and water resistant. The biggest advantage of ceramic and porcelain is that it’s waterproof and scratch-resistant. However, tile can feel cold underfoot, and is more likely to become slippery when wet.
5. Wood-Look Tile
Taking ceramic tiles to the next level, wood-look tiles are embossed with a texture that looks like wood grain. While they behave like any other tile, the appearance of these tiles makes them a best seller because they can mimic any type of wood —- even “distressed” and reclaimed finishes! However, wood-look tile can be a little more expensive than standard tiles.
