Ten Tips for Choosing New Hardwood Floors

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HardwoodFloorIstallation_BeforeAfterAlmost every home in the Bay Area, California from the Berkeley Hills to Walnut Creek have hardwood floors. Once perceived as the expensive alternative to carpets and linoleum, is no longer expensive. Scientific data now shows that money is no longer the only consideration for choosing wood floors. Factors like health and effects on our environment play a big role in consumers decision making. Hardwood floors have become the go to floors. They are beautiful, renewable, easy to maintain and more affordable than ever. Here are the best tips for how to choose a hardwood floor for you home:

  1. Not toxic – unlike other floor coverings such as carpets and linoleum, wood floors are not made of synthetics and chemicals. The tree is cut and milled into wood flooring planks. Then in most cases the floor is finished in your house by a professional. Carpets and other floor coverings hide a lot of pollutants underneath them. A lot of people especially young children will develop some sort of health conditions living with those floor coverings over their life time. See this article from the American Lung Association http://www.lung.org/healthy-air/home/resources/carpets.html
  2. Easy to clean – hardwood floors need vacuuming, sweeping or mopping periodically. That is it. Once clean they hold no pollutants in them. Nobody likes hiring and paying professionals to come in and clean their floors. Unlike carpets which need constant shampooing wood floors are easy to maintain.
  3. This 80 year old floor was repaired and refinished by Avi's Hardwood FloorsNot expensive – years ago wood floors were considered a high end choice and very expensive. With today’s growing demand hardwood floors had become the number one growing floor choice by home owners. Whether bamboo floors or exotic Brazilian cherry, wood floors are no longer just for the wealthy.
  4. Durability – nothing compares to the durability of wood floors. Carpets will stain, smell and look just plain bad after a short period of time, especially if you have a busy life with kids and pets in the house. Wood floors are more forgiving, maintain their look much longer and can be refinished multiple times.
  5. Longevity – hardwood floors which were installed a hundred years ago are still being sanded and repairs to date. Carpets and other man made floor coverings never last that long. Nobody wants to spend a lot of money every few years on a new floor. That is why wood is the best choice.
  6. Trends – wood floors never went out of style. Designers and architects still specify wood floors as the go to floor. You can change the look of wood floors by changing the stain color after a while and keep up with the trends in the market.
  7. Easy to repair – if you have damages in your wood floors or need to add on a small section it is easy as easy can get. Many old wood floors have been refinished and repairs to revive their looks. Other floor coverings would have had to be torn up and replaced.
  8. Smart investment – any realtor will tell you that a home with wood floors is worth a lot more than a home without. If you installed hardwood floors at your home and years later wanted to sell it, you are most likely to get your money back and still make a profit on top of that. Homes with wood floors sell faster and receive many more offers.
  9. Better for our planet – we were all taught that cutting trees is wrong. Well, not quite true. With engineers controlling the forest harvesting, we now have more trees in our forests than ever before. The United States is not clear cutting forests and we are now able to manage them instead of eliminating them. With programs for planting trees and protecting wild life we manage to use wood, our most valuable resource of all with the least impact on our environment.
  10. Nothing makes a home more welcoming and warm than wood floors. With just a simple layout or an intricate parquet with inlays and medallions, wood floors make every house a special home to you and your family. 

Tips for getting the best out of your hardwood flooring contractor

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They say it’s the little things in life. Well, it is. Especially when hiring a flooring professional to redo your hardwood floors. Now that you’ve gone through interviewing and finally hiring your flooring contractor, it’s time to let them do the work. Let’s face it, it is pretty awkward when strangers like contractors work inside your home. No matter how qualified and professional they are, it still feels a little like someone is in your private space. We are located in the Bay Area, California so what I write here is from working in my immediate area for more than a decade and a half. We refinish, install and repair hardwood floors mainly in the East Bay but what I write probably applies to many other trades.

  • Try to be on time or a few minutes early to your estimate appointment. We usually travel an average of 20-30 minutes to get to your home on time. We don’t want to be late and if we are a few minutes early (especially in the morning) please let us in and not wait outside.
  • Contractors have a bad reputation for a lot of reasons. Home owners try to protect themselves by doing due diligence. We always welcome questions and questioning us but don’t compare what we say to what you read on Google search in a manner that implies Google knows better than us. You don’t do it with your doctor or dentist so please don’t do it with us. We are professionals in our trade for a lot of good reasons.
  • Be ready when you say you will. It is frustrating to a hardwood flooring contractor showing up to work and the site is not ready. Don’t still be making breakfast in your kitchen while your couch is in the middle of the living room and you need “just a little more time to finish up getting ready”.
  • Don’t micro manage your contractor. You will get the least our of a contractor by watching them all the time which leads me to
  • Thank you goes a long way. A small snack to the professionals crawling every inch of your floor to make sure it is perfect wouldn’t hurt either. I noticed that when my guys hear a thank you or get some water (me too) it makes the moral on the job much higher.
  • Handling a construction remodel can be stressful. By the time you get to the finishing touches like hardwood floors you are probably coming to a close on the planned schedule. Allow your contractor enough time to complete his/her work to the standard expected.

I am sure there are many more dos and don’ts on this list which could go on forever. Remember that making life easier on the people you hire makes life easier on you.