The Beautiful Wood Flooring Trend That's Continuing To Dominate Throughout 2025
Flooring trends seem to come and go, but there's one that's sticking around in 2025 — wide hardwood planks. They are a sleek, modern choice featuring pieces of wood that are typically wider than 6 inches, creating a stunning natural feature around your home. Homeowners and designers alike are gravitating toward this choice for its unique ability to transcend design styles, whether it's rustic, midcentury, or industrial. With such a wide array of aesthetic and practical benefits, it's no wonder that this flooring is taking interiors by storm.
The growing popularity of wide plank flooring stems from the stunning visual impact that it can have when incorporated in a room. With fewer seams between each board, the eye is naturally drawn across the space, creating the illusion of openness. It can contribute to a room feeling much larger, working exceptionally well in an open floor plan where each room seems to flow into the next. Furthermore, the wider surface area of each plank allows the wood's natural texture and grain to shine around your home, showcasing each board's individual characteristics.
The introduction of wide planks can not only curate a much more open space, but it also produces a one-of-a-kind feature that cannot be achieved with traditional wooden boards. Beyond aesthetics, wide plank flooring is surprisingly versatile, spanning across different interior styles. Lighter wood tones can create a Scandinavian-inspired feel around your home, while darker wood types add warmth that aligns with a more rustic interior. With such a vast array of design possibilities, it's no wonder wide planks are dominating as one of the hardwood floor types that you will see everywhere in 2025.
Things to consider before installing
Despite the widespread appeal of wide plank flooring, there are a few things to keep in mind before committing to the installation of hardwood in your home. The cost of acquiring and installing wide planks can be enough to deter some homeowners. Newly manufactured wide wooden planks can cost anywhere from $15 to $55 per square foot depending on the type of wood, with reclaimed planks averaging around $10 per square foot. This is compared to narrow planks at $3 to $7 per square foot. It might not be feasible to cover larger areas of your home in these wider planks, as it can cost a pretty penny. And their recent popularity doesn't seem to help. With a limited number of trees able to be manufactured into these planks, it is increasingly more difficult to source the planks and install them, and they often need to be special-ordered.
Even if the cost of installing wooden flooring isn't a problem, there's another potential downside you should be aware of. One of the major appeals of the flooring is that it has a limited number of seams, producing the sought-after cohesive look. With fewer seams, wide planks are more susceptible to warping and cupping, especially when exposed to changes in humidity. As the wood expands and contracts with fluctuations in moisture, it can lead to uneven flooring that lifts or buckles. So, if you're considering installing wide planks in a room that experiences frequent temperature or humidity shifts, it might not be the most durable option for the long term.