Floors for Down the Shore

As summer is winding down, we’re all squeezing in our last weekend trips “down the shore,” as we say here in New Jersey. Before you pack it in for the winter, take a look at your floors. If it’s time to replace them, check out our recommendations for flooring for the beach.

Recommended floors for the beach:

Engineered hardwood flooring is more adaptable to beach climates than solid hardwood flooring. Engineered hardwood floors are made of 100% real wood and can be installed anywhere in your home, even in difficult beach locations. Beach houses are often subject to high humidity and engineered hardwood is less likely to buckle when the humidity rises.

Laminate flooring comes in many styles; they can look like wood and ceramics. It’s scratch resistant; if you didn’t wipe all the sand off before coming inside, no worries. Hybrid laminate flooring is also available, which has the scratch-resistant surface of a laminate with a water resistant core.

If you don’t want to dry off before coming inside from the ocean, luxury vinyl tile is your best bet. LVT is water resistant and has a thick, scratch-resistant coating so you don’t have to worry so much about sand rubbing on the floor.

Not recommended:

Carpets can be hard to clean; on vacation, vacuuming and steam cleaning the carpet is the last thing on your mind. Dripping water and sand can get trapped in the carpet and be hard to remove.

Solid hardwood flooring, while beautiful, needs a humidity-controlled environment. The fluctuating weather down the shore is not ideal for solid wood, which expands and contracts with the humidity levels. If you decide on solid hardwood, make sure you get an expert installation. An expert installer will properly measure the humidity levels, acclimate the wood, and leave space for the floors to expand.

Before you head down the shore, come visit one of our showrooms. We’ll help you find the best floors for the Jersey shore.