The prime grade is characterised with light grain markings and the natural grade (also called the boring maple) with larger knots and shallower colours – these can be obtained for around £30 per sq.m.
However, the grade that’s really starting to take off recently is the so called Rustic grade. A decade ago you’d expect this timber to go into a burner, yet now it is regarded as really cool and beautiful.
It is characterised by heavy graining and inconsistent colours. Because it is so much in fashion, it can reach the price of the beaver grade or even surpass it in case there’s an especially nice figuring on the surface.
Pics: 1st – unknown
2nd – Lauzon, France
I absolutely love the look of hardwood floors. The only thing I don’t like is that it’s cooler so you have to wear socks or slippers. It’s also more difficult to clean vs carpet.
And how does that figure? I’ve always thought that cleaning carpets was a nightmare. With hardwood you just take a bucket of clean water, a mop and pick up the dust. With carpets, well, let me be honest – you cannot properly clean a carpet even with the most powerful hoover – small dust particles will always be there!
Lovely floors indeed. For the benefit of future readers, if you are looking for maple floors you are likely to come across grade (select / prime as mentioned here), but you may also come across type. Type would be solid maple floor which is made from complete wood, or engineered maple floor which is made from wood together worth MDF and Plywood. For most properties either type will suit well. Engineered has a slight advantage of not reaction to temperature changes, where solid is considered slightly stronger.