Frightfully few things add warmth, character and elegance to your home quite like hardwood flooring. At Carpet Exchange, we carry a veritable forest of amazing options for you to choose from. Including well over 100 selections in natural hickory flooring and oak hardwood flooring alone.

Plus, there’s also pecan, ash, maple flooring and more. And just for the record, betula sounds way, way, way better than warty birch.

Since there are so many options out there, both in solid hardwood and engineered hardwood, we want to make sure you’re barking up just the right tree. So here’s a quick overview of two of the most popular hardwood species and the merits of each.

From tiny acorns, great oak hardwood flooring grows.

While oak wood flooring has been incredibly popular for the past couple of decades, its old-world charm and craftsmanship have been celebrated for centuries now. With over 60 different varieties grown domestically in the U.S., today oak hardwood is at once as available as it is affordable.

The two top types are white oak flooring and red oak flooring. Both feature a relatively straight grain that provides you with a very clean look. Another benefit of oak is that it’s easily stained. So by all means, feel free to stain your new oak hardwood flooring as dark or light as you like to match the rest of your room’s décor.

As hardwood goes, oak is also pretty dense. Which means it’s deft when it comes to standing up to denting and scratching. Add in its ability to shrink or expand in response to moisture, and it’s easy to see why oak hardwood continues to be such a popular choice.

One of the hardest hardwoods of them all: hickory.

Hickory racks up an impressive 1820 on the Janka hardness scale, making it the second hardest hardwood available in the United States. Based on its strength, density and ability to fight wear and tear, that’s why hickory was once used to manufacture baseball bats and golf clubs. And today, you’ll still find hickory hard at work in tool handles.

On the flooring front, natural hickory flooring is extremely resistant to dings, scratches and all sorts of other potential damage. Which makes it the perfect choice for the very highest-traffic areas in your home.

Hickory hardwood flooring is also very distinctive visually. It comes complete with lots of knots, eye-catching grain and even unique mineral streaks. The overall appearance is rustic yet sophisticated. Hickory is also surprisingly easy to maintain. An occasional sweep and/or mop can generally do the trick. Which is why if you’re asking yourself “what’s the best wood flooring near me?” the answer could very well be hickory.

There are also a whole host of other hardwood options as well. Like walnut and birch. Even handscraped and distressed. And they’re all right in your neck of the woods at Carpet Exchange. So stop by any of our 17 Front Range locations to seem them all for yourself. Hardwood would look wonderful wherever you put it.