The best solid hardwood flooring brands are known for higher quality and range of beautiful styles that can be renewed with refinishing to create long-lasting durability. They’re a cut above the average hardwood flooring.
Note – We’ve completed a similar list of the best engineered hardwood flooring brands if you plan to install the flooring in a high-moisture area like a bathroom or basement.
Best Solid Hardwood Flooring Brands Reviews
The top solid hardwood flooring brands are presented in alphabetical order – it would be impossible to rank them, since each has its own unique qualities that set it apart.
For each, there’s an overview of the flooring along with its styles, top-selling lines and cost for the flooring only. Installation is extra – usually $3.50 to $6.00 per square foot. DIY is certainly an option too for experienced homeowners.
Bruce
This large flooring manufacturer offers nearly 200 solid hardwood options in the most popular styles. You’ve got a full spectrum of color tones from white and light beige to rich browns and neutral grays to consider. Most are made in the USA. Find Bruce hardwood flooring at home improvement stores and online retailers. It is among the most affordable solid hardwood flooring you’ll find.
Terminology tip:Strip flooring is a newer industry term for narrow planks of flooring, usually less than 3 ½” wide.
There’s a lot of oak and some maple and hickory in Bruce hardwood flooring lines. If there’s a drawback, it’s the limited range of wood species and no exotic woods.
Styles: Most are traditional planks less than 3” wide to about 4” including 2 ¼” strips. There are a few 5” planks. Bruce hardwood is produced in several distressed and hand scraped styles too.
Top Lines: Their names give a good sense of water heater they offer – American Treasures classic, Barnwood Living rustic, Dundee Oak Collection traditional and Natural Choice casual elegance.
Carlisle specializes in wide plank hardwood flooring from 5” to more than 10”. Prefinished and unfinished flooring is available. Many unique styles set this brand apart.
Carlisle is ecofriendly, using only old-growth trees carefully selected and sourced within 500 miles of its factory to reduce carbon emissions in transportation. The flooring is sold exclusively through Carlisle showrooms dotted around the country.
Styles: Carlisle certainly makes traditional options in red oak and white oak. But if you’re considering something extraordinary, the brand is worth a close look – rift and quartersawn flooring, reclaimed barnwood and pine plus rich cherry, hickory, walnut and patterned floors are part of the mix.
Top Lines: Earthen earth tones, Casual in neutrals and mediums, contemporary Manhattan and Manhattan Herringbone and rustic Retreat. Traditional and Urban lines speak for themselves.
Prices: $8.00 to $16.00 per square foot.
K.D. Woods Company
This company made its name with flooring made from reclaimed hardwood. In addition to wide-plank solid hardwood flooring from reclaimed materials, K.D. Woods has added new wide plank flooring that is every bit as unique. As with most of the companies on our best hardwood flooring brands list, K.D. Woods uses Select and Better grades for wood for its products.
Most styles are offered in solid and engineered, but we’re reviewing solid hardwood only in this guide. With this brand, you can choose stock flooring or tell them what you want in terms of color, wood specie and finish type, and there’s a good chance they can make it happen for you. Expensive yes, but truly custom flooring is a rarity.
Styles: Most are rustic, as you’d expect from flooring produced with reclaimed wood. These include barnwood, distressed chestnut, reclaimed hickory and yellow pine in distressed and tavern plank options. K.D. Woods also re-mills some of the reclaimed wood for a cleaner finish.
The flooring made from newly sourced wood is available in white oak, hickory, walnut, cherry and heart pine. Skip sawn technique shows saw marks. Character flooring lets the knots and natural qualities show through. Select lines are smoother underfoot and to the eye.
Top Lines: Again, your main options are reclaimed wood flooring and flooring made from newly harvested wood. The company seeks to use only mature, select cut trees and isn’t afraid to take advantage of fallen or standing dead trees when the wood is in great condition.
Prices: Starting at about $9.00 per square foot, cost can rise steeply on custom flooring.
Lauzon
Lauzon sources wood from around the world and does amazing things with it. The results for you are a pleasing array of style options in finishes that bring out the best in each wood species.
If there’s a downside, it is that Lauzon hardwood flooring planks are 3 ¼” and 4 ¼”; there are no wide planks in either of the collections.
Styles: Choose from smooth, soft brushed, hand scraped, wire brushed and flooring that is hand scraped and wire brushed for deeper texturing.
Top Lines: Lauzon makes the Ambiance Collection and the Designer Collection. Ambiance is offered 5 series and features hard maple, red or white oak, yellow birch, black walnut and Brazilian Cherry. The Designer Line is manufactured in 3 series using the North American woods plus exotics like African Sapele and Santos Mahogany.
The Designer Line features matte (20% sheen) and velvet (35%). The Ambiance flooring comes in ultra-matte (10% sheen), matte (20%), velvet (35%) and semi-gloss (45%).
See our full Lauzon Flooring Review for even more details on one of the best hardwood flooring brands available today. Lauzon makes engineered flooring too!
Price: $8.00 to $15.00 per square foot
Mirage
Mirage produces flooring that has garnered many industry awards for style and beauty. Solid hardwood flooring is produced in maple, red oak and white oak. A lifetime structural warranty and a 35-year warranty against finish wear back most Mirage lines.
If you like technical stuff, Mirage makes three flooring types: Solid hardwood, engineered hardwood – a solid wood top layer over plywood, and Trubalance, which is a solid layer over an SPF (spruce, pine and fir softwoods) core.
Styles: Smooth, brushed, engraved (lightly textured) and a more heavily textured finish Mirage calls “cork.”
Top Lines: Sweet Memories brushed hardwood in traditional colors and a casual style, Flair featuring earth tones with a matte finish and Natural, a line of lightly stained, smooth or brushed wood that beautifully shows off the natural wood grain of maple and oak.
Prices: Most is $5.00 to $12.00 per square foot. Some exotic woods are closer to $15.00 per square foot or even a bit higher.
Mullican
Mullican makes the list of the best hardwood flooring brands due to quality and a large selection of USA-produced styles. Find Mullican solid hardwood flooring from coast to coast in flooring stores.
Wood species are hickory, maple and oak, white oak and red oak. Narrow 2 ¼” to 5” planks – nothing considered wide planks – are produced.
Styles: Mullican uses descriptive names that make it easy to know what’s available – Modern, Rustic, Traditional, Eclectic and Coastal casual.
Top Lines: Chatelaine hickory flooring has a timelessly traditional look. Rustic Nature Solid is another hickory flooring in warm tones. Wexford oak in lighter hues provides a modern vibe, while Williamsburg Plank with a weathered pearl finish is one of Mullican’s Coastal lines.
Check out the exclusive Flooring Clarity Mullican Hardwood Flooring Review for complete details on this top-selling line of gorgeous flooring.
Prices: $4.00 to $8.00 per square foot.
Shaw
While Shaw is a large manufacturer, it offers a limited line of 4 solid hardwood flooring collections.
Styles: Narrow-plank Family Affairs is smoothly finished. Lake Park lightly scraped wood is casually traditional. Canyon Crest and Mountain View feature a more heavily scraped, rustic feel.
Top Lines: Family Affairs is manufactured in 2 ¼” and 3 ¼” widths of oak in a range of colors. Canyon Crest and Mountain View are hickory flooring in hues ranging from warm honey-brown to neutral gray brown.
Somerset makes the list of the best hardwood floor brands because it takes the craft of manufacturer quality flooring very seriously. It’s the kind of flooring hardwood installers often choose for their own homes. Standard oak, red and white oak, maple and hickory flooring is available from Somerset.
Styles: Smooth, scraped and textured styles are offered in 4 gloss levels from matte to high gloss.
Top Lines: The narrow-plank Color Strip collection is solid Appalachian oak in the full spectrum of colors you’d expect. There’s a Color Plank line too – same colors, but wider flooring. If you want sparkle, consider the Somerset High Gloss Collection in oaken beauty including Cherry Oak and Gunstock. The Classic Collection satisfies the appeal for traditional looks, and the Character Collection delivers dynamic beauty accentuated with natural knots, markings and grain/tone variations.
Prices: $4.00 to $7.50 per square foot.
What’s the Best Solid Hardwood Flooring?
Every brand we’ve reviewed here is among the best. Bruce offers decent quality at a lower cost – so is a good value. Most of the brands are mid-priced to expensive, which is what you’d expect from the “best of the best.”
But they’re all very good.
Take your time shopping for hardwood flooring that will last as long as your home does! Most can be refinished 3-5 times, with 30+ years for each finish, so that’s a long time.
Take your time – it’s worth repeating – and browse options from all these manufacturers. Spend time on their sites to learn more and see all they have to offer.
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