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Guide to Smoked Oak Wood Flooring


Guide to smoked oak wood flooringNowadays, it is safe to say we are spoilt of choice when it comes to creative and exciting wood flooring designs and styles. One of the most popular of them right now is smoked or fumed oak flooring, which enjoys a lot of popularity and attention from homeowners and interior designers recently. Indeed, smoked or fumed oak wood flooring is a great style that can make an impression in both domestic and office settings. Additionally, smoked wood flooring is a style that perfectly complements traditional and modern interior designs, so there is practically no reason to not love this wood flooring style.

Smoking or fuming wood flooring is a process of finishing the surface of wooden floorboards and it is used for adding a very distinctive and charming look to a wooden floor. Smoking or fuming gives the wooden floorboards a darker shade and stresses the grain of the wooden material in order to achieve a dramatic and interesting look. This popular recently technique is often used for oak wood flooring and it helps for enhancing its natural beauty, colour, and grain.

This technique pretty much consists of exposing the wooden floorboards to ammonia fumes in an enclosed environment. In order to achieve that, it is often used a container, a closed tank or a sealed tent and the process should be done under the control of experienced professionals. The wooden floorboards are put into one of the above mentioned and then exposed to small amounts of ammonia in the atmosphere, which causes the darkening of the wood and stresses its grain for a beautiful and interesting outcome.

The Right Use of Ammonia

Unfortunately, since the high demand for fumed oak wood flooring at the moment, some manufacturers are trying to speed up the process and apply ammonia directly on the surface of the floor to achieve the effect. However, this is definitely not the right approach. Additionally, DIY enthusiasts are also testing the technique at home and making the same mistake of applying ammonia directly. The only way to change and darken the colour of the wood and achieve this beautiful and interesting look you are going for is only when the wooden floorboards are exposed to the presence of ammonia in the air.

Direct application of ammonia onto the surface of the floorboards won't help you achieve the effect. The way how smoking or fuming works is pretty simple, however, it won't work with direct application of ammonia onto the surface of the floor. When exposed to an atmosphere containing ammonia, the tannins contained naturally in the wood come to its surface. The longer the wooden floorboards are exposed to this atmosphere, the darker they will get, which means you can achieve a truly dark, almost black hue for your wooden floor.

Levels of Coloration

Smoked oak wood flooring - levels of colourationAs we have already mentioned, the final effect of darkening of the wood highly depends on how long the wood is exposed to ammonia infused atmosphere. The longer wood is exposed, the darker it will get and it some cases you can achieve an almost black colour. Normally, to get a light brown colour, all you need to do is letting wood to stay in this environment filled with ammonia for no longer than 12 hours.

Wood could be left for longer, of course, and it can take up to 72 hours for the achievement of a very dark shade. In addition, how the colour of the wood will change also depends a lot on the temperature. The higher the temperature is the faster wood will get darker. Exposure to warm temperatures gives the wood a beautiful red undertone which is very suitable for traditional domestic settings when you want to add a lot of warmth and cosiness to the interior.

On the contrary, exposure to lower temperatures gives the wooden floorboards a slightly green undertone which allows you creating a more exciting, interesting and modern look for your interior. As you can see, the process of fuming or smoking wood flooring allows for a lot of creativity and gives you the opportunity to own and enjoy a very personalised and unique floor. Therefore, it is often considered that fumed or smoked oak wood flooring adds a lot of character and distinctive style to every home or office, wherever it is installed and works as an eye-catching statement piece of the room.




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London, NW2 7HW
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