Years ago hardwood flooring was only available to people with wooden subfloor. Raw, unfinished solid hardwood ¾” thick and 2 ¼” wide was nailed into the plywood and installed in a Tongue-In-Groove fashion. It was then sanded to a smooth finish. The wood was then stained and coats of urethane were applied.

In later years prefinished floors both solid and laminated were invented. The laminated prefinished wood was able to be glued down to a concrete slab. These products eliminated both time constraints and inconvenience.

Years later the “Laminate” floor was invented by Pergo in Sweden. They are floating floors, not adhered to a subfloor, whether it be wood or concrete. In Europe this feature enabled the homeowner to take their floor with them when they moved. Essentially, they are plastic floors that just look like wood. Uneducated retail flooring salespeople represented, erroneously, these to be inexpensive wood.

Due to invention of the laminates or plastic floors, what was once called laminated hardwood came to be known as engineered hardwood. Already the consumer was misinformed enough that they didn’t believe engineered wood was real wood. In actuality engineered wood is all wood with a layer of species on top; oak, maple, pecan etc.  The lower layers are criss-crossed layers of plywood making engineered hardwood, more dimensionally stable then solid and able to be refinished three times. Making it equal to, if not, better than solid hardwood.