Look for water marks, stains and faded areas on the floorboards. Laminate doesn't stain the way natural wood does, so if you see water rings, random splotches or discolorations on the floor, it is probably hardwood.
Feel the grains
In solid wood furniture, you should be able to see the grains if you look closely, even if it's stained or painted. The grains should be varied if it's truly solid wood. Real wood has imperfections and natural patterns that make it beautiful.
Laminate flooring will have a repeating pattern. It may not be obvious right away, but that's only because you're not looking for it. If you stare long enough, you will likely find boards with the same wood grain. Hardwood flooring is made from solid wood, so every board will be different.
Laminate flooring is affordable and looks just like wood, tile or stone, without the cost, maintenance or wear and tear. It's also scratch resistant, water resistant and the click-lock design makes it easy to install.
Laminate flooring is constructed from thin, pressed wood board with a repeating printed image of wood fused onto a fiberboard core. One thing to note about laminate flooring is that it is not made from plastic but from a collection of wood fibers with a top layer of resin acting as a “wear layer”.
The grain pattern is a sure way of identifying the wood type. In practice, hardwoods such as European oak lumber or mahogany have an open poor structure while softwoods are almost smooth with zero grain indentations. Another pattern worth observing is if the wood was plain sawn or quarter sawn at the time of cutting.
The density of most woods is less than the density of water, and so the fact that wood floats does not seem so surprising. However, objects like ships constructed from materials like steel that are much denser than water also float.
Solid wood, as the name suggests, is a material comprised entirely of solid wood, all the way through. This wood comes directly from trees and does not include any other types of wood that are typically manufactured from wood composites, such as plywood.
Laminate flooring can look convincingly like actual wood from a distance. But this similarity breaks down upon close inspection. With its foam underlayment and synthetic core, laminate flooring feels soft—almost springy—underfoot.
While hardwood may be the caviar of the flooring world, there are tons of “fake wood flooring” options that are, in many cases, just as good as the real thing. The most popular types of fake wood flooring are luxury vinyl plank and laminate.
Laminates last longer, install easier, are more eco-friendly are absolutely gorgeous and, with their embossed grain or hand scraped finishes, impossible to tell apart from hardwoods. And they're still usually much less expensive than hardwoods.
Can you paint laminate? Yes — and it's actually quite simple. Follow our step-by-step guide on how to paint laminate furniture, including project-specific tips for painting laminate cabinets, desks, coffee tables, bookshelves and dressers.
Hardwood floors will usually have raised graining and indented knots that can help you determine. However, high-quality vinyl floors may have these too. Hardwood flooring is a natural product and therefore each plank will be visually different and will never be perfectly symmetrical to another.
The grain patterns of softwoods are generally smoother, while hardwoods tend to be more rough and porous (maple being a notable exception). Together with the scratching, you may be able to tell which type of wood it is by looking at the grain and feeling it with your fingers.
Wood is a porous material. This means that, over time, exposure to water will permeate the wood's membranes, causing it to rot, soften, and fall apart. Additionally, water compromises the structure of wood, leading to mold growth and expensive restoration efforts.
Wood is a hygroscopic material, meaning it is susceptible to holding and releasing water molecules via either absorption or adsorption. These changes in moisture content will cause the wood to swell or shrink; this is an entirely natural characteristic of hardwood flooring— it will always move.
Solid hardwood is a completely organic material that is sensitive to moisture changes. Solid Hardwood flooring requires more maintenance due to its sensitivity to water. You can't leave standing water on hardwood because it can cause a visual change or structural shift to your floor.
If you've stumbled across a piece of wood you like and need to quickly determine whether it's softwood vs hardwood, simply scratching the wood with your fingernail should give you a good idea. If scratched, a softwood timber will retain a very clear line of damage.
Xylorix PocketWood is a free-to-use app where users can access information and macroscopic images of over hundreds of wood species from around the world.
Xylorix Inspector is an automated macroscopic wood identification mobile app. Given the 24x magnified anatomical visual information of the cross section (end-grain) of a timber, Xylorix Inspector uses its trained artificial intelligence models to identify the timber genus/species in a few seconds.
Plywood is a common example of a laminate using the same material in each layer combined with epoxy. Glued and laminated dimensional timber is used in the construction industry to make beams (glued laminated timber, or Glulam), in sizes larger and stronger than those that can be obtained from single pieces of wood.
Laminate furniture consists of synthetic materials used to form a thin layer that looks like wood. Since it's not actually made from wood, laminate pieces often look manufactured. The laminate gets its wood grain appearance through a printed process.
While laminate flooring has many strong points, its most significant downside is its poor resistence to water. Laminate flooring can tolerate some water on top surface but it should not be allowed to pool and remain for long. Otherwise, the water may seep below and affect the sensitive core layer.