If you’ve spent more than a minute on social media sites looking for inspiration for your hardwood flooring, you’ve likely seen white hardwood floors everywhere. They come in a few varieties. They can be stained white, white washed, painted, or just plain white wood. The decision comes down to how white you want your floors. If you choose a bare wood, it won’t be completely white but it will be close depending on which wood you choose. Here are a few of the whitest woods.
Holly
Holly is the tree that produces the famous Christmas leaves and berries. The berries bloom during the winter, which is the reason for their association with Christmas. The wood is also harvested in the winter to avoid graying of the wood. When harvested properly, holly wood is almost completely white. It ranges from ivory to cream depending on the sapwood or heartwood. It’s a domestic wood but it’s very slow-growing, which means that it can be very expensive. Many people use holly for baseboards or for inlays on their hardwood floor. Some choose to intersperse holly planks with other white woods.
Butternut
Also known as white walnut, butternut is a hardwood in the walnut family. It is a very lightly colored wood that is almost white. However, it is one of the few hardwoods that is softer than most softwoods. It is not great for high traffic areas, but it will work great if you want to use it to accent other types of wood. For example, if you were to choose a floor made of planks of several kinds of wood, butternut could be a great addition.
White Alder
One of many species of the alder family, white alder is a great wood for flooring. It is hard, resilient, dense, but easy to work. You can use it in conjunction with other lightly colored woods to create a white floor that is very visually striking. You can use it alone to create an entire floor. It’s very versatile.
Persimmon
Persimmon is the hardwood of the persimmon tree that produces the fruit. It’s most famous for being the wood that is used in golf clubs. However, it’s also great for flooring, baseboards, and inlays. It is a light colored wood with a fine grain. It’s great for a uniform looking floor with few disrupting details. Persimmon can be a little more difficult to come by because the fruitwoods are often in high demand for other purposes, but if you can find some persimmon flooring, it could be a great choice.