Nothing beats hardwood flooring. If you are a new homeowner, you probably dream of having pure hardwood flooring across your home’s floors. Aside from impressing your friends and family, hardwood floors feel smooth yet firm beneath your feet. Imagine feeling the unique wood patterns that make up the signature texture of hardwood floors.
However, they are incredibly expensive. That’s why only a small percentage of homes carry hardwood floors. If you wish to enjoy hardwood flooring, you have to save up money until you can finally afford it. In the meantime, there are great yet affordable "wood” tile alternatives that you can consider while you are saving up for real hardwood floors.
The Achim Home Furnishings Medium Oak Vinyl Tile is an inexpensive alternative to real wood flooring. Learn more about it below.
Why Should You Consider the Achim Home Furnishings Medium Oak Vinyl Tile for Your Home?
We searched everywhere for the best wood effect floor tiles in the market. Aside from vinyl flooring, there are also floor tiles (wood style) made of other materials such as ceramic, porcelain and laminate. But which one provides the best aesthetic appeal for your home? Which one makes every penny spent worth it?
We settled on the Achim Home Furnishings Medium Oak Vinyl Tile for its durability, looks, and affordability. Here are just some reasons why we love it.
Specs at a Glance:
- Available on Amazon for as low as $19.93 (for the 20-count pack)
- Can be bought in 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 packs
- Has dimensions of 12 x 12 inches
- Features a wrinkled textured finish
- Comes with own adhesive pre-applied
- Can be installed easily by peeling and sticking
- Has a smooth and shiny glossy finish
- Can be used in any part of the house
Just Peel and Stick
You don’t have to hire a professional to install these floor tiles for you. You can do it over the weekend! The Achim vinyl tiles can be installed on your floor by peeling off the bottom part of the tile and simply laying it on the floor. It comes with a pre-applied adhesive that works on almost all surfaces. If it doesn’t, you may need to add your own adhesive to make it stick.
Enough to Cover Your Floor
Because of its inexpensive cost, you can buy boxes and boxes of Achim vinyl tiles to cover every nook and cranny of your home. Not even an inch of your floor will be left untouched by your vinyl tiles. The Achim vinyl tiles can be bought as a 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 pack. If you have some leftover tiles after installation, keep them so that you can use them as replacements for broken ones.
Textured Finish
While vinyl tiles can look like real wood, they don’t usually feel like their solid wood counterparts. They can mimic the aesthetics of wood, but not its texture. The Achim vinyl tiles come with wrinkled textured finish to give your feet an odd yet familiar sensation. While it does depend on your personal preference, you will certainly find the texture interesting at the very least.
Protective Coating
If you have pets and small children at home, then you might have already realized how much beating your flooring has to endure. Your pets’ futile attempts to dig your concrete floor and your child dropping all sorts of things onto the floor can damage your flooring over time. Fortunately, the Ashim comes with a layer of protective coating to withstand minor damage.
Shortcomings
Some customers report that the adhesive that comes pre-applied on the tiles lacks enough strength to stick to the subfloor. After they applied the Achim vinyl tiles and let them dry for hours, they started to peel by themselves and became loose. You may also have to trim the edges of the tiles because of uneven cuts, making alignment a much more difficult task.
One remedy for this situation is to grab your own adhesive beforehand and apply it in addition to the pre-applied adhesive.
Why Should You Purchase a Vinyl Floor Tile?
Hearing the words “vinyl tile flooring” hasn’t impressed anyone, as many people will agree. Synthetic wood like tile flooring hasn’t enjoyed a good reputation in the past years. But before you snub this flooring material, you should hear the following reasons why you should consider vinyl floor tiles (wood) for your flooring needs.
Cost
Undeniably, the greatest appeal of vinyl flooring to homeowners is its inexpensive price tag. Compared to solid wood flooring, synthetic floors like vinyl tiles are incredibly cheap. If you have already exhausted your budget, you can get away with durable and neat-looking vinyl floors for your home’s flooring. Despite their affordable price, they look and feel good.
Don’t let their inexpensive cost fool you. Vinyl tile flooring is extremely durable, making it a practical option as your home’s first flooring. By the time you need to have them replaced, you have probably saved up enough money for natural wood floors. Compared to solid wood and reclaimed wood floors, vinyl tile floors are more economical.
Durability
Since they are made of synthetic materials, vinyl wood floors can withstand damage from water moisture and mold. These two are the most common weaknesses of natural wood flooring. When water seeps through the cracks of solid wood floors, mold starts to form. Water also accelerates wood decay, weakening the structure of your flooring.
Fortunately, synthetic floors don’t face this problem because the flooring material is not real wood. They are immune to the common problems that plague wood floors. Many vinyl floors also come with a protective layer against heavy foot traffic. You can be assured that your vinyl flooring will look brand new for a long time despite the constant beating from foot traffic.
Installation
Hardwood flooring is already expensive because of the flooring material itself. To make it even worse, you need to pay for an entire team of professional installers to install the solid wood floor in your home. Such flooring can take up your time and your hard-earned money. Even flooring options like wood-look porcelain tiles require expertise to install.
On the other hand, vinyl flooring is designed to be easily installed by the customer themself. Not all vinyl floors are installed in the same way, however. Some have clicking mechanisms that lock the tiles with one another. Others have pre-applied adhesive, similar to a sticker. You just have to peel the glossy layer off and stick the tile on the floor. No need to hire professional installers!
Maintenance
When real wood flooring needs to be maintained, they have to be refinished. While this can be considered as a boon, it can also be a bane for cash-strapped homeowners. Refinishing solid wood flooring is expensive. You need to hire a professional to do it for you. You can’t do it by yourself unless you have the necessary experience and expertise to pull off the job.
Meanwhile, vinyl tile flooring is usually sold in huge packs. Oftentimes, there may be some tiles left after installation. Don’t throw them away just yet! You can use these spare vinyl tiles as replacements for damaged flooring. You can simply remove the compromised tile and replace it with another. Within minutes, you can have the beauty of your flooring restored!
Aesthetics
What most people appreciate about solid wood flooring is its aesthetic appeal. No one can deny how beautiful natural wood is. Not only does it look great, it also comes in many different species. Each wood species offers a unique feel and look to your home. It’s easy to see why hardwood flooring is the most in-demand flooring material.
Vinyl flooring, thanks to its image layer, can also mimic the visual appearance of wood floors. A faux wood tile is made of synthetic materials but bears a striking resemblance to real wood floors. Some synthetic flooring also comes as wood grain tiles which mimics the unique wood grain pattern found in real wood floors. Others can also sport the signature texture of wood flooring.
Final Thoughts
The Achim Home Furnishings Medium Oak Vinyl Tile is a cheap yet reliable solution for your flooring needs. While it may not be suitable as your home’s long-term flooring, it can surely give you the look and feel of real wood flooring as long as it lasts. You certainly get what you pay for when it comes to these wood effect floor tiles.
If you are a cash-strapped homeowner looking for a quick and cheap flooring solution, then this faux wood tile flooring might just be for you! Otherwise, feel free to check out our website for more flooring solutions!
June 3, 2022
