Selecting a gloss level for a Hardwood floor is a decision that can really affect the aesthetics of your home.
So what’s best for you? Once you know if you want a solvent, oil or water-based finish (and our expert staff will walk you through this!), you need to decide what look you are after. Matte finishes deliver a more ‘raw’ looking floor and show less marks and dirt in general. However, if you go too far down the low gloss road to natural or ultra-matte finishes, they actually start to show markings and dirt a bit easier. The same sort of issue occurs with gloss finishes. Higher gloss finishes provide crisp “new” look, and when clean (which will be more often!) can appear to be “newer for longer”. But again, if you go too glossy (think mirror finish) all you can see when looking at the floor is reflected light and slight unevenness in the floor levels (no floor is perfectly flat and even).
The answer? Well as you can probably guess from above, semi-gloss or satin finishes try to walk the middle ground of looking finished, being forgiving with maintenance requirements and showing colour without too much reflection from light sources. And if you feel that a more matte or gloss look suits your home, we would always suggest coming back a few steps from either high gloss or ultra-matte to ensure you limit some of the negative aspects of these extreme looks.
Finally some good news! All timber floors that are sanded and coated well – be it a new floor or something 70 years old – look fantastic in any gloss level. And if the decision is still all looking too hard, ask us about our free sampling of gloss levels when completing your flooring project for you!
Gloss
Satin
Matte
