Have you ever heard of engineered flooring? It is a very nice way for you to get beautiful looking wooden floors at a fraction of the price of a regular hardwood floor. So what is the secret? They use a thin layer of hardwood glued to a high-quality plywood board, which creates the illusion of a hardwood floor that looks just like the real thing.
This type of flooring is actually easier to install than regular wood flooring since you can use a wide variety of methods for installing it, while wood flooring usually is installed using nails or staples.
There is of course a downside to this as well. A deep scratch in your engineered flooring is going to be a lot more difficult to repair than one in a regular wood floor. Since the wood layer is very thin, the scratch can reach all the way down to the plywood which is quickly going to kill the illusion of a wood floor.
