For many homeowners the best and easiest place to buy hardwood flooring is your local big box store, their prices are competitive, their range of options pretty broad and their service…well…variable depending on who you talk too! Nevertheless they serve the needs of many homeowners adequately, but if you don’t look beyond these big national stores then you’re leaving a lot of options on the table.
Specialist retailers who only operate online also offer a large range of products and, as they have much lower overheads, great discounts as well. Certain smaller niche manufacturers also sell direct and finally, for the largest choice of wood flooring, you can browse major manufacturers online and then find a local small flooring retailer to order from. Prices might be slightly higher but you often get better, more personalized service from a small family run local retailer.
In this Home Flooring Pros guide we will list 36 of the best places to buy wood flooring so that you can find the best option for you and your budget…information is power!
The Big Box Home Improvement Stores
With their big buying power and numerous store locations it’s hard to ignore the presences of the big home improvement stores, especially attractive to DIYer’s and homeowners on a budget. Many buyers feel an added sense of security and convenience buying form such well recognised retailers, but other savvy buyers realise that a wider choice of flooring at better prices can often be found elsewhere.
Home Depot
You can get both solid and engineered hardwood from Home Depot along with everything else you need from underlayment, molding and trim through to tools if you plan to do the work yourself. You can schedule a pro to come and measure your project and they provide installation services. However installation is outsourced to local contractors so why not approach local contractors yourself for free estimates and control the business relationship. The range of brands is good while not exceptional, Bruce, Mokawk, Shaw and Home Legend are among the better known names.
Lowe’s
Lowe’s too offers all the accessories that go with a hardwood installation but have a smaller range of products. They stock solid, engineered and locking hardwood from brands such as Bruce, Mullican, US Floors and Mohawk. Again offers measurement and installation via screened independent contractors.
Lumber Liquidators
Given the negative press that Lumber Liquidators has received lately it’s questionable whether they currently qualify as one of the best places to buy your hardwood. They have a large range of wood flooring and no doubt there are some good deals to be had, however we do feel that ultimately you tend to get what you pay for in life so take care when considering a hardwood product priced at just 0.99 cents per square foot. Their brands aren’t household names although you may have heard of Bellawood.
Menards
Menards has 280 stores across 12 states, while a big well known organisation they seems to be a little off the pace. Their online presence isn’t great, they don’t do social media and their website is pretty uninspiring. In particular we don’t like the phot presentation of thei flooring stock and the way they price by carton rather than by square foot. If you have a branch nearby the of course it’s worth popping in to take a look at their current stock.
Dedicated Flooring Stores
There are still thousands of small local and family run retailers too numerous to mention here, but later in this article we show you how to find the ones that stock the hardwood flooring brands that you like the most. The number of national retailers that specialise solely in flooring, as opposed to the general home improvement stores, is much more limited, in fact here we offer just three retailers.
Carpet One
Yes, for quite some time now the well-known national carpeting store has been selling all kinds of home flooring including wood, laminate, vinyl and tile. Like quite a few flooring retailers they work exclusively with their own store brands (Invincible, Rustic River and Voyager). They have a decent and very varied range of products covering many different species and installation types. Prices are higher than some others with most hardwood costing between $5 and $12 per square foot.
Floor & Decor
This is a dedicated flooring retailer we like, with 54 stores nationwide with new stores to come. Their physical stores are complimented by a website that is easy to use and easy to navigate. More importantly their focus is on delivering flooring products at wholesale prices to homeowners and contractors alike. At the time of writing they were offering 210 different solid and engineered hardwoods ranging in price from $1.69 to $7.20 per sq/ft
FlooringAmerica
FlooringAmerica is hybrid flooring retailer, unlike Carpet One they don’t have their own branded stores rather they are composed of many much smaller independent flooring retailers who have signed up to operate with Flooring America. Enter your postcode and you will be redirected to the FlooringAmerica site for your nearest independent retailer. One thing we like using this site rather than going direct to a local retailers website is the ability to browse hardwood flooring prices; so much more helpful when researching than having to apply for a quote.
Online Home Improvement Retailers
BuildDirect
Probably the fastest growing building supplies and home improvement retailers online, Canada based BuildDirect offers online shopping and delivery from on of its 12 warehouses across the US and Canada. They sell a good range of products from their own exclusive manufacturers. Most products range in price from around $2.50 to $7.50 per square foot.
ProSource
Prosource is another thriving building supplies online retailer who started out dedicated to home floor coverings in 1991 so it’s safe to say they know what they are doing by now! ProSource is a wholesaler to building trade professionals so it’s not somewhere a private homeowner can shop direct. Nevertheless that needn’t stop you shopping their range of hardwood flooring and then asking your contractor to purchase the wood flooring for you. ProSource have a great range of hardwood and a great range of popular hardwood brands including
Green Building Supply
If Eco-friendly flooring is important to you then one of the best places to find green and sustainably harvested hardwood is Green Building Supply. They sell three quality brands, EcoTimber, Kahrs and US Floors and while the selection is quite limited the options are attractive and reasonably priced between $5 and $10 per square foot.
Greenhome Solutions
Green Home Solutions is another great place to buy Eco-friendly floors with a choice of solid, engineered and reclaimed products. They too offer a small but attractive range of well-priced floors from brands including EcoTimber and Trestlewood. You’ll need to contact them for prices on some of their products and the remaining prices online range from $5 to $11 per sq/ft.
Wayfair
Wayfair is a very interesting online retailer that you should take a look at, they sell over 7 million products for the home from over 7000 suplliers covering, including of course hardwood flooring. We saw close to (a staggering) 2200 hardwood products on offer, including all the most popular brands and styles, with prices ranging from $2.87 to $20.45 per square foot. A great place to start your research if nothing else!
South Cypress
South Cyprus is another online flooring retailer that we really like. Their website is a pleasure to browse with a great layout and great images that will definetly get your design inspiration juices flowing! They have a good selection of hardwoods from established brands like Anderson, Columbia, Mannington, Mohawk, Mullican and more. And what they lack in quantity they make up for in quality choices with prices between $2.70 to $12.79.
SimpleFLOORS
SimpleFLOORS do have 20 showrooms across the US, but as that means they may well not have a store near you we have included them as one of our major online retailers. You can order up to 5 free samples and they are proud of their 99.7% damage-free delivery track record on purchases. The majority of their flooring is engineered hardwood and they have a good selection of hand scrapped products. Interestingly they deal direct with timber producers so don’t sell recognized brand names, but this does mean they can be more competitive on price.
iFLOOR
iFLOOR prides itself on being “the first internet flooring store in the world” with a low price guarantee and the best shipping rates. You can order samples of most of their flooring and they have around 570 items split between solid and engineered hardwood. Bruce hardwood is the primary brand they sell making up over half their inventory and prices range from $2.24 to $12 per square foot.
Floors To Your Home
If you’re looking for the lowest flooring prices online then Floors to Your Home is probably the best contender. Why? Because their primary focus is on sourcing and selling quality discontinued and closeout flooring. You can find many well-known quality brands and once a particular product has been sold you won’t be seeing it again! Thye conveniently show how much square footage they have in stock of each product and at the time of writing they had just over 300 hardwood floors from as little as $0.79 per square foot to $8.79.
Find a Store that Stocks the Hardwood Flooring Brand you Want
Have you got your heart set on a particular brand of hardwood? Maybe you’re already in love with a particular product. If so the best place to buy your hardwood is the local flooring store that stocks the brand/product you’re after. All the links below take you to the store locator page for that brand. Just click the link and enter your zip code and you’re good to go! Brands are in alphabetical order.
Anderson Floors
Armstrong
Bellawood
Boen
Bole Floor
Bruce
Columbia Flooring
Coswick
Elegance Wood Flooring
Homerwood
Johnson Hardwood
Junkers Hardwood
Kahrs
Mannington Residential
Mirage Floors
Mohawk Flooring
Mullican Flooring
Pergo
Shaw Floors
Trestlewood
Do you know any better places to buy hardwood? Please let us know in the comments below.
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