hardwood floors

Check your eyes because it’s not hardwood at all, it’s an LVP floor. Luxury Vinyl Plank flooring has been around for a while now and continues to gain in popularity. It is waterproof and can stand up to heavy traffic. These floors are ideal for basement installs as they can be installed directly onto a concrete slab and are not affected by humidity/moisture. Truth is, home-owners are opting to install LVP flooring throughout the home in place of more costly hardwood floors. LVP floors are manufactured to mimic the look of real hardwood and feature all of the natural characteristics you’d find in real wood like variation, knots, mineral streak, etc. Unlike sheet vinyl flooring, LVP comes in individual planks which provides a seamless, flowing look when installed. One big selling point with LVP is the ease of install. These floors can be installed directly on top of existing vinyl, linoleum, tile and even hardwood flooring. However, it’s imperative that the existing floor be perfectly level otherwise there will be soft spots. Best to stick with at least a 6 mm thickness when picking an LVP floor. Anything thinner than that could be problematic. It’s also prudent to go with one that has an underlayment attached to the back for more cushion underfoot and some noise cancellation.

The world of hardwood flooring is full of options. There are different species to choose from, countless different manufacturers, color options, width of boards, solid or engineered, etc. You even have options as to how a hardwood floor can be laid. Hardwood flooring traditionally comes in boards of random lengths. Once installed, the floor presents a type of pattern. Some homeowners like to get more creative and go with a more artistic type of pattern that will compliment the rooms or the existing decor. I’ll go over some of the patterns in case your clients would like to spice things up a bit and really make their home stand out… 45 Degree Angle (Pic above) – 45-degree flooring creates a sense of movement and fluidity, offering a unique aesthetic that can transform the look and feel of a room or the entire floor of a home. This angle can also be a clever tool in interior design to guide the eye and create a sense of flow through different areas of a home. It could be used in a single room, giving that room a sense of uniqueness, or it can interestingly tie rooms together throughout an area of the home. Random Width (Pic below) – We’ve done countless jobs in a random-width pattern and in my opinion it gives the floor a very custom look. The most common pattern is 3 1/4″ and 5″ planks but depending on the size of the rooms one could go even wider. A random-width pattern does a good job of hiding the bevels of a hardwood floor, giving it a more seamless look. It certainly works for a more rustic approach but can fit in with a modern look as well. Herringbone – This is a classic design that actually dates back to the Romans! Besides bring much elegance and class, the main advantage of herringbone is that it makes small spaces look large. I personally find it to be a very elegant look, a real eye-catcher! Because it doesn’t have any angled joints, you can get a herringbone floor with all types of hardwood flooring and some click-together options like laminate and LVP. It’s not the easiest type of floor to install, by the way. Best to trust pros like us that can get it done right. Chevron – Note that Chevron is different from Herringbone, but to the untrained eye, they can be easy to confuse. The easiest way to tell the difference is to note that herringbone is made up of 90-degree angles, while chevron wood floor patterns are made up of 45-degree angles. We did a job for a very particular home owner in North Wales, it was about 800 sqft of exotic hardwood installed in a Chevron pattern. That job was a doozy! But, the end-result turned out beautiful! Check it out… Borders – Hardwood flooring with a border is a classic look that can do a good job of framing a room. It’s best used in rooms that are for the most part a perfect square. Usually, the boarder itself is of a different color than the main floor. It can also give a sense of flow if installed throughout a home’s entire floor. Honestly, we used to get more requests than we do so it may be going out of style but can always work if done tastefully. We’ve done some wild jobs throughout the years. Once we were involved in a job where the owner installed various species of hardwood in various widths..and it was all reclaimed wood! Lost my pics of that job but it might be for the best. I got dizzy just looking down at it. Course it was in Philly by the art museum so…

“Time is of the essence”…a statement so important that it’s written on a real estate contract, as you all know. Truth is, that statement holds true even after the real estate deal has been consummated. After the contracts have been signed there will be more work to do, the work that will make the house look like home. These big renovations have a lot of moving parts and can be a lot to coordinate. There is always a timeline involved which makes it essential for all the trades to adhere to the timeline they give the home owner. So how long is is going to take to do the hardwood floors? No one wants the other contractors messing up a brand new hardwood floor or newly refinished hardwood floor so we should be in last. That puts a bit of pressure on us to stick to a firm timeline as many times furniture is on it’s way and people are eager to move in to their new homes. The way we handle this pressure is by working efficiently and maintaining communication with the home owners so there are no unnecessary delays. We stick with a system that keeps us on point and ensures that we work in a timely fashion while still delivering exceptional results. So how long to do a hardwood floor? An installation from 600-1200 sqft would take 2-3 days to complete. Figure 3 days if there is an existing floor to demo. Installs from 1200-2000 sqft would take 3-4 days to complete. Anything larger would most likely be 4-5 days. One factor that can extend these timelines is whether or not there is furniture in the house. Refinishing hardwood floors takes longer to complete as the staining and finishing both require time to dry. If a hardwood floor refinishing project is within 600-1200 sqft and a stain is desired, the project will take 3 days to complete. One day to sand and stain, two days to apply the urethane finish. Jobs 1200 sqft and up will take 4-5 days to complete. Again, these timelines would increase if there is furniture, existing flooring to remove or repairs. Many times in the summer months on very humid days the stain does not always dry in time to coat the floors with finish on the next day, thus causing a delay. The same can happen with the urethane finish. Now, there are finishes like acrylic and Bona that dry much faster and would result in being able to complete the work sooner. With those finishes, a 3 day job can be completed in 2 under ideal conditions.

I’ve always wondered if people would be more adventurous with their floors if they knew all the options available to them. Like most of you, I’ve seen countless homes and have also watched tends come and go. The majority of my customer want a floor that will work well with their house and furniture. Most home-owners are presented the same ideas and same kinds of floors most hardwood flooring contractors or general contractors recommend. Again, usually they are going by what the customer is describing as their ideal floor. I have the feeling that a lot of home-owners would be more excited about their hardwood floors if they knew how to make them really personalized and unique. To be clear, I’m not talking about high-cost hardwood flooring nor exotic species of wood that nobody else or can afford. I’m talking about little details and differences that are available to home-owners who would like to add personal touches to their hardwood floors. Here are a couple of ideas that won’t break the bank but can make a hardwood floor look extraordinary: Metal Transitions and Borders These can add a very sophisticated touch to any hardwood flooring job. The metal inserts could be used as a border around the perimeter of a room or as transition pieces at doorways between he hardwood floor and another type of hard surface floor. The metal is available indifferent colors that can pick up from hues in the wood. The contrast between wood and metal gives a very rustic-modern feel and can work well in just about any home. Random Width Boards I’m surprised that more people don’t go with random widths when installing a new hardwood floor. Even if you’re going with a run of the mill prefinished hardwood you could always make it more interesting by mixing up the size of the boards. You could do 3 1/4″ next to a 5″. If you’re doing site-finished flooring you could do 3 1/4″, 4″ and 5″ or go even wider than that depending on what would look good in the rooms. Either way, I think random width flooring gives a floor a very custom look as it’s just not all that common out there. Stone Trim and Transitions Much like metal, stone can make for a very sophisticated and elegant addition to a hardwood flooring job. You can find stone products that have similar grain patterns to the wood floor as well as complimenting it tone-wise. It probably would be expensive to do the whole house, but a mud-room or other specialty/utility room could get a stone base to match or compliment the wood floor. Lots of possibilities, just need a little vision.

One of the major selling points of hardwood flooring is that fact that it provides a continuous look that is able to tie several rooms together, if not the entire house itself. Many times one of the rooms will be a kitchen, and this is where things can get touchy. The kitchen is the most heavily used room in the house, bar none. This automatically means it will get the most amount of foot traffic which makes the floors susceptible to wear. Beyond that, there is a lot going on in the kitchen; you’ve got appliances that leak, pots and pans that can fall and cause damage and even liquids that can drip on the hardwood floors and cause stains and discoloration. When we get calls for repairs, the problem area is almost always the kitchen. Again, boards buckling from a leaky appliance, dark spots near the sink caused from accumulation of water droplets, etc. Since hardwood flooring a kitchen can be problematic, should it be avoided? I say – yes and no. No if the kitchen is open and connected to the other rooms. Yes if the kitchen is tucked-away or positioned in a way that going with another type of flooring won’t break up the sense of flow. That may sound shocking coming from a hardwood flooring contractor but I must speak the truth! Now, if hardwood flooring in the kitchen is an absolute must, there are things that can be done to mitigate the possible problems down the road. First thing would be to ensure the hardwood floor is sealed with a moisture-barrier sealant finish. This will protect the floor from those little water-droplets near the sink area. Another thing that can be done about that is putting down a small mat near the sink area. It goes without saying but I’ll say it, always a good idea to inspect the appliances to ensure they are not secretly and slowly leaking water onto the hardwood floors. In regards to the floors themselves, best to use a species of wood that is durable and won’t react dramatically to a little bit of moisture. Examples are red and white oak and maple. This will also help protect the floors from the heavy traffic. When site-finishing or refinishing hardwood floors in a kitchen, best to go with extra coats of poly-urethane. This will offer a durable layer of protection that will help the hardwood floors last longer.