Engineered Hardwood in Ajax: Why Wide-Plank Hickory Works

If your Ajax home was built between the late 1990s and mid-2000s, you are probably still living on the builder's floor plan: ceramic tile in the front hall and kitchen, broadloom on the stairs and in the bedrooms, and a main-floor stretch of flooring that has taken twenty years of backpacks, winter boots and moving furniture. The house itself is solid. The floors are what make it feel like it's due for an update. That is exactly the situation where Engineered Hardwood pays off.

What Twenty Years Does to Builder-Grade Floors in Ajax Subdivisions

Detached homes in Northeast and Northwest Ajax were typically built with a clear pattern: tile where the builder expected water, carpet where the builder wanted to keep costs down, and a thin, mid-tone finish everywhere else. After two decades, the carpet is matted along the stairs and hallways. The tile grout has darkened. Because the flooring changes at nearly every doorway, the main floor feels chopped into separate rooms.

The older parts of town are a different story. Ajax began as a wartime community, and many of the 1.5-storey homes near the original core still have hardwood under old carpet. Sometimes that floor is worth refinishing. Sometimes it is too thin or too damaged, and replacing it is the better call. We will tell you which one it is before you spend anything.

For most of these homes, running one continuous floor through the main level does more for the look and resale appeal than almost any other single upgrade. If you want to see how this plays out across the area, our page on flooring in Ajax covers what we install here.

Why 6 1/2-Inch Hickory Suits a Busy Ajax House

For a home like this, we recommend looking at Canadian Standard's Hemingway - Novella, a 6 1/2-inch engineered hickory plank. You can see it here: Hemingway Novella engineered hickory.

Three reasons it fits the way people actually live in these houses:

• Hickory is one of the hardest domestic hardwood species. That matters with kids, dogs, hockey gear and heavy winter traffic coming through the side door.
• Grain variation hides everyday wear. Hickory has strong natural contrast from board to board, so small scuffs and dust do not show the way they do on a uniform, even-toned floor.
• The 6 1/2-inch width suits larger main floors. Fewer seams across an open kitchen, dining and family room layout makes the space feel calmer and more current than the narrow strips common in 2000s builds.

The Hemingway colour sits in a range that works with both the warm oak cabinetry many of these homes still have and the white or greige kitchens people are moving to. Bring a cabinet door or paint chip to our showroom and we will compare it in person, since colour on a screen never tells the whole story.