Air dried lumber
Lumber that was dried naturally by having air circulate through it, either on the inside or the outside. It must be stickered to allow air to flow around all sides of the boards.

Bark
The outer protective layer of a tree composed of dead cork and other elements.

Beam
This is a load carrying member in a structure which is supported at both ends.

Beveled/Eased edge
The small bevel machined on the long sides of wood, and sometime on the ends of the flooring boards where they connect with the next piece. The bevel edge can be very small or quite large and visible.

Engineered flooring
It is a product that is made up of multiple layers of wood that is glued together as one board. The top decorative layer is wood. The bottom layer is usually particle board or plywood. It is made with an interlocking tongue and groove system similar to standard strip flooring.

Grain
This refers to the direction, size, arrangement, appearance, or quality of the fibers in wood.

Close-grained
Wood has narrow, inconspicuous annual rings giving a fine texture. They are small closely spaced pores in hardwoods.

Open-grained
Wood has a visible grain pattern and a coarse texture.

Interlocking grained
Wood has the grain running in different directions and this makes it very difficult to cut and finish.

Straight grained
Wood has all the fibers running parallel to the center of the tree and this makes it the easiest wood to cut and finish.

Growth rings
This refers to the layer of growth that the tree puts on in one year. The annual growth rings can be seen in the end grain of lumber.

Hardness
This is a property of wood that enables it to resist indentation.

Heartwood
Heartwood is the older, harder central portion of the tree. It usually contains deposits of various materials that frequently give it a darker color than sapwood. It is denser, less permeable and more durable than the surrounding sapwood.

Joint
A joint is a juncture of two pieces of wood.

Kiln-dried
This refers to artificial drying of lumber, sometimes more effective than wood that is air dried.

Nosing
Nosing is a piece of material that is used to finish off the lip where your floor comes to a step or railing. Different sizes of nosing are available for different uses.

Parquet
This is the least expensive wood floor. It is put together like a jig saw puzzle with multiple pieces of wood that fit together in various arrangements to make a standard 12” by 12” pattern. The designs can run from very common to very complex. All parquet floors are designed to be glued down so installation is easy.

Patina
This is the yellow soft appearance of wood which has had years of use and has been affected by light, air and tiny dents and scratches.

Pickled floors
This is the result of rubbing white paint into previously stained and finished wood flooring for an informal or more casual look.

Plank floor
This is essentially a standard strip floor but normally refers to a wider board of a least 3” and up to 12”. Often it is installed with visible nails. It can have a finished or unfinished edge which will be square.

Polymerized tung oil finish
This finish is hard yet flexible, waterproof and impervious to alcohol and many food acids.

Pre-finished
This is the opposite of unfinished. Pre-finished flooring has already been sanded and surface finished prior to delivery. The finish can include a stain to alter the original color of the wood or just a clear coat of finish to protect the wood. Older floors were pre-finished with a wax coating, but most old floors today use a tung oil finish which gives a more authentic look.

Rip
This is a term referring to a cut lengthways, parallel to the grain.

Rough sawn
Wood is cut into various sizes and left in the rough surface finish.

Sapwood
Sapwood is the softer, younger outer portion of a tree that lies between the cambium (formative layer just under the bark) and the heartwood. It is more permeable, less durable and usually lighter in color than the heartwood.

Site-finished flooring
All flooring that arrives at your home is in its natural state, i.e., no stain or clear finish is applied to the wood. This type of flooring is sanded and finished AFTER it has been laid in your home.

Square edge
When all the edges of each individual piece of wood are machined perfectly square so no groove is apparent between the boards when the flooring is laid down.

Strip flooring
This refers to flooring made entirely of solid pieces of wood, usually under 1” thickness and 2” to 3” in width. The lengths will vary dependent on the grade of the product that you buy. Each individual board is machined with a tongue on one side and a groove on the opposite side. All boards are nailed down one at a time.

Toenail
Driving nails at an angle into corners or other joints.
 
Tongue and groove
This refers to a carpentry joint in which the jutting edge of one board fits into the grooved end of a similar board.

Urethane-polyurethane
This is a highly durable finish that is painted onto floors to protect them.

Tung oil
It is the finest natural wood finish in existence and has yet to be duplicated synthetically.

Veneer
This refers to a thin sheet of decorative wood glued onto a thick piece of wood.

Warping
When trees are first cut into lengths and sizes, the natural forces (stresses), locked up inside the tree are released. This can cause the wood to deform in different directions such as twisting, cupping, bowing, or bending.

Weathering
Mechanical or chemical disintegration and discoloring of the surface of the wood caused by exposure to light, the action of sand and dust carried by the wind, and the alternate shrinking and swelling of surface fibers with the continual variation in moisture content brought by changes in the weather. Weathering does not include decay.