With Shaw's Floorvana color matching app, you can now capture and connect your inspiration with the perfect flooring for all of your rooms through patent-pending color matching technology. Get our free color matching app to use wherever inspiration strikes.
Xylorix Inspector is our flagship mobile app that provides automated wood identification through captured macroscopic end-grain images.
Color and Stain: Even within the same wood species, color can vary depending on the stain used. Bring a sample of your existing floor to a flooring store for comparison. Board Width: Measure the width of your existing boards. Matching the width is important for creating a seamless look.
You'll want to match the type of wood as well as the grade of the floorboard. You'll need to match the width of the planks and the color of the finish as well. And depending on the amount of wear in adjacent rooms, you can choose to texture your new floorboards to create the appearance of an older floor.
Real hardwood floors have unique, naturally occurring grain patterns that vary from plank to plank. Look closely for subtle differences in color, knots, and lines. If the pattern appears too uniform and repetitive, it's likely an engineered wood or laminate floor.
To distinguish between natural wood, laminate, and vinyl flooring, observe the pattern repetition on the boards. Natural wood will have unique variations like knots and grain patterns, while laminate and vinyl will show repeated, uniform patterns due to their mass-produced printed layers.
Does the wood have an open, porous texture? Most softwoods will be almost perfectly smooth with no grain indentations, while many common hardwoods have an open pore structure, such as oak or mahogany; though there are some hardwoods that are also smooth to the touch, such as maple.
Match Tones
Sun fading is a leading cause of mismatched floors. When laminate or engineered flooring is involved, try and match the faded tones of the existing floor to new products being installed. Gather samples with different intensities of the same color, then pair them with the existing, faded floor.
If you are looking for a match, measure the width of your floorboards and ensure your new planks are the same width. If it is an older floor, measure a few planks to get the average, as the planks may have warped and expanded over time.
With Shaw's Floorvana color matching app, you can now capture and connect your inspiration with the perfect flooring for all of your rooms through patent-pending color matching technology. Get our free color matching app to use wherever inspiration strikes.
Visit local salvage yards or architectural salvage stores to explore their inventory. Remnant sales, typically held by flooring retailers or installers, can be an excellent opportunity to find small quantities of discontinued flooring at discounted prices.
Match the filler to the color of the spot you are filling, not just to the specie of the whole floor. Maple floors have dark spots and oak floors have light sections, and all floors have at least one dark knot. Use your eyeballs, not the name of the filler to guide you.
White Oak has a smoother grain.
White Oak grain patterns tend to be more moderate, while Red Oak grain is often stronger and more dramatic. That means, even though White Oak flooring is slightly harder, dents and scratches may be more easily hidden by the grain patterns in a Red Oak floor.
Home improvement stores and flooring stores may also run contests on a regular basis where you may be able to win a home makeover and get your flooring for free. You can either travel to the stores in your area, or you could make it a practice to visit their websites regularly to see what contests they may be offering.
The simplest way to think of wood floor cupping is to imagine the edges of each plank sticking up higher than the centers. It ends up looking a little like an accordion. If you imagine a picture of a child drawing a boat in the water, then the water will give you a good idea of what a cupped floor looks like.
Depending on the age of your floor, matching your existing floor can be difficult, but nonetheless, it is possible. Newer wood is easier to match than older hardwood planks because older wood has inconsistencies due to varying lengths, thicknesses, and techniques that may have been used when it was installed.
Enter a zip below and get matched to top-rated pros near you. Your beloved hardwood floor's aesthetic can be easily upended by a rogue board with water damage, cracks, or grooves. But try not to fret—you can replace individual wood planks on your own without having to replace the entire floor.
TilesView brings a whole basket of benefits when it comes to floor tile identification. This is a powerful app capable of revolutionizing the way consumers, contractors, and designers explore and select their tiles. So, your whole tile selection process proves to be more efficient, enjoyable, and rewarding.
Hardwood flooring is natural, with unique graining and knots, and is installed using nails or glue. Vinyl flooring is synthetic, with uniform patterns, and typically uses a floating installation method.
Woods that are similar but not the same don't typically look good together. To install two different shades of hardwood, a good rule of thumb is to go dark with one and light on the other. You can also get by with medium-dark and medium-light. An example is mahogany next to maple or white oak.
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.
The Xylotron, a tool used to identify wood.
Match Wood Undertones and Mix Accordingly
It's best not to mix and match. Therefore, if your dominant wood tone is warm, use woods and stains that have yellow, orange or reddish undertones. If your wood has a cool undertone, then it's best to stick woods and stains with grey, taupe, pink or green undertones.