There is a timeless beauty to real wood flooring that no other material can quite replicate. It feels warm underfoot during our chilly Front Range winters, looks stunning when bathed in our bright Colorado sunshine, and adds long-term value to your property.
Whether you are updating a mid-century ranch in Wheat Ridge, fixing up a beautiful property in Golden, or moving into a spacious family home in Parker, choosing hardwood is a major milestone for your home.
But once you decide to invest in real wood, you quickly hit a crossroads. Walk into any traditional flooring environment and you’ll be hit with a wall of terms: Engineered vs. solid? Janka hardness scales? Character grade vs. select? It’s incredibly easy to feel overwhelmed by the choices.
As your neighbors and flooring experts, we don't think choosing a floor should cause a headache. Let's break down the practical types of hardwood floors and what you actually need to know to find the perfect fit for your family’s daily lifestyle.
Table of Contents
Breaking Down the Different Types of Hardwood Flooring
Choosing the Right Wood Species: The Hardness Factor
Designing from the Ground Up: Widths and Finishes
The Simply Floors Difference: Skip the Warehouse Guesswork
Breaking Down the Different Types of Hardwood Flooring
The Core Two Decisions: Solid vs. Engineered Hardwood
Before you pick a wood species or a color, you have to choose how the plank itself is constructed. This is the single most important technical decision for a home in the Denver metro area because of our unique, semi-arid climate.
Solid Hardwood Floors
This is the traditional style: each plank is a continuous, solid piece of wood from top to bottom, usually three-quarters of an inch thick.
The Benefit: It can be sanded down and completely refinished multiple times over its lifespan. A quality solid wood floor can easily last for a century.
The Colorado Caution: Solid wood is highly sensitive to humidity changes. Because Colorado has incredibly dry air and dramatic seasonal shifts, solid wood planks will naturally expand and contract. If your home's indoor humidity isn't carefully controlled with a whole-house humidifier, solid wood can prone to "gapping" (forming small spaces between boards in the winter) or "cupping" (edges raising slightly in a humid summer).
Engineered Hardwood Floors
Engineered hardwood is 100% real wood, but it’s constructed differently. It features a top layer of premium hardwood (called the wear layer) bonded over multiple cross-grained layers of high-density fiberboard or plywood.
The Benefit: The cross-grain construction makes the plank incredibly stable. It resists shifting, warping, and shrinking when the humidity drops. For the vast majority of homeowners in Arvada, Centennial, and Aurora, engineered hardwood is an exceptional, worry-free choice for our climate.
The Refinishing Fact: Because it has a top wear layer, it cannot be sanded down as many times as solid wood. However, a quality engineered floor with a thick wear layer can still be safely refinished one to three times over its life.
Choosing the Right Wood Species: The Hardness Factor
Different wood species have different density levels, which determines how well they resist dents from pet claws, dropped cast-iron pans, and busy footsteps. To measure this, the flooring industry uses the Janka Hardness Scale, which rates the force required to embed a small steel ball into the wood.
Here is how the most popular residential hardwood species stack up:
Wood Species | Janka Rating | Visual Character | Best For |
Hickory | 1,820 | High, dramatic grain variations; knots and rich color shifts. | Active households with large pets, kids, and high foot traffic. |
Hard Maple | 1,450 | Clean, subtle, uniform grain lines; light and airy look. | Modern, minimalist, or contemporary interior styles. |
White Oak | 1,360 | Linear, smooth grain; accepts stains beautifully with neutral undertones. | The modern standard; ideal for open-concept spaces and custom stains. |
Red Oak | 1,290 | Strong, prominent swirling grain; carries classic warm, rosy undertones. | Traditional homes or matching existing historical woodwork. |
Designing from the Ground Up: Widths and Finishes
Once you've settled on the construction and the species, you can focus on the styling details that bring your room's aesthetic together:
1.Select Your Plank Width:
Traditional strip flooring (under 3 inches wide) offers a timeless look. However, 2026 design trends lean heavily toward wide-plank options (5 to 7 inches or wider). Wide planks mean fewer seams, which instantly makes a room in Centennial or Littleton feel larger and more open.
2.Choose Your Surface Texture:
Smooth, high-gloss finishes show dust and scratches very easily under bright sunlight. Opting for a matte finish, a wire-brushed texture, or a subtle hand-scraped look is excellent for hiding everyday family wear while adding organic character.
3.Coordinate the Undertones:
Look at your room's dominant features. Ensure the undertone of your new floor (warm, cool, or neutral) complements those elements so the space feels cohesive rather than chaotic.
The Simply Floors Difference: Skip the Warehouse Guesswork
Choosing a permanent foundation for your home shouldn't involve driving across town on your weekend, wandering through a massive warehouse, and trying to guess how a tiny sample on a retail rack will look inside your kitchen. Under harsh, artificial fluorescent store lights, colors shift dramatically, and what looked like a soft taupe in the store can look completely different next to your living room sofa.
At Simply Floors, we completely reimagined the experience. We are a woman-owned, family-operated local business, and owners Buddy and Karyn Mitchell founded our company on a straightforward promise: to enthusiastically exceed your expectations by bringing the showroom directly to your doorstep.
Our expert team will bring a curated selection of premium hardwood samples right to your home in Arvada, Aurora, Denver, or anywhere along the Front Range. You can lay large samples directly on your floor, look at them next to your actual baseboards, and see exactly how the grains perform in your home's genuine natural light. We focus on transparent product education and communication from the first measurement to the final plank.
We Invite You to Call or Visit One of Our 3 Showrooms Today!
Our Service Areas Include: Wheat Ridge, Centennial, Denver, Arvada, Aurora, Golden, and Parker, CO
Arvada, CO
Address: 5945 Ward Rd Arvada, CO 80004
Phone: (303) 731-5380
Centennial, CO
Address: 8101 S Quebec St. #2 Centennial, CO 80112
Phone: (303) 731-5380
Aurora, CO
Address: 17034 E Quincy Ave. Aurora, CO 80015
Phone: (303) 731-5380
About Simply Floors Inc.
At Simply Floors, we believe the best place to choose your new flooring isn’t under the buzzing fluorescent lights of a warehouse, but in the natural light of your own home where your life actually happens. As a woman-owned, family-operated business serving the Colorado Front Range—from Arvada and Wheat Ridge to Centennial and Parker—we’ve traded the high overhead of "mega-showrooms" for a personalized shop-at-home experience that puts you in control.
Our mission is built on a simple promise to enthusiastically exceed your expectations by providing curated, high-quality selections and transparent pricing without the big-box stress. Whether you are replacing well-worn carpet or updating your forever home, our dedicated team handles every detail with "Excellence in the Ordinary," ensuring a seamless, professional journey from the first measurement to the final plank.
