Wood Floors

Our staff of experienced floormen can perform any kind of floor job, from laying simple strip flooring to custom-design floor patterns, from a natural finish to any color requested by your interior designer. We cooperate with architects, interior designers, contractors, but also provide service to individual customers.

We make sure that you get 3 coats – 1 coat of sealer and 2 coats of polyurethane and that the wood is smooth and clean from sanding dust, human or paint brush hair and it has no streak marks from roller or applicator.

Project: Lexington Boat Cruises (Manhattan)

Wood Floor Installation

Hardwood floor will look beautiful and will last for years if it is installed over a properly prepared surface. In New York City there is so many unaware tenants living on subfloors.

Subfloor is a base for laying the main floor: strip/plank flooring or parquet squares. They look like wide board wood floors, mostly pine or redwood. If the wood is still in good condition it should be left that way. If it is in bad condition consider laying a new floor on the top of this one.

Below are preparation steps for wood flooring installation:

Lay down building paper on existing subfloor.
Draw the straight line (starter line) using chalk line from the window to the end of the room.
Select a long straight strip and lay it against the starter line at the left side of the room with the 1/2 inch from the adjacent sidewall.
4 inch from starting line loosely arrange the next seven or eight courses, mixing long and short lengths (ranking the floor).
Start nailing each strip 2 inches from its left end.
Keep the boards tight to ensure that they stay straight.
Install any trim before sanding and finishing the floor.

Wood Floor Refinishing

Before you move to a new apartment or house you should refinished wood floors. Residential floor properly refinished will last at least 10 years. Any other job can be done when you already live there. You can cover furniture and have the walls painted, you can buy new cabinets and hang them on the wall. But to refinish the wood floors when the furniture is already in the apartment is very costly and uncomfortable to tenants.

To determine whether the floor needs refinishing, dip fine steel wool in kerosene or alcohol and rub in a circular motion over 1 square foot of floor. Wipe off the residue with a damp sponge, apply a layer of paste wax, and buff it up to a shine. If the results are satisfactory, you may have saved yourself a lot of trouble.

If spot repairs, cleaning and rewaxing don’t help, or if there are scratches and stains that cannot be removed, it’s time to refinish.

Wood Floor Maintenance

Proper maintenance of wood floor can save you a lot of trouble.

Vacuum wood floor with soft brush attachment. Use vacuum on rubber wheels (old type vacuums with small, plastic wheels can scratch the surface of the floor).

Clean wood floors with small hand damp mop using mixture of water and Mr Clean (a little bit) as often as necessary. There are plenty of wood floor cleaning spray solutions at the hardware stores. For me, with 2 dogs in the house, Mr Clean works best!

Waxing wood floors is not recommended. Wax gets dirty very fast and can peal off. To get rid of it you will need a wax stripper and lots of water. That solution will go between the gaps in the wood and can damage the wood!

You can only use paste wax on bare/unfinished wood floors and keep it that way all the time.

Scratches. To fix the scratch get a Minwax Wood Finish Stain Marker at your hardware store to match the color of your floor. (get lighter color, if no exact match to the color of your floor. It will be less visible as repair than darker stain). Shake it and apply to the scratch. That’s the best way to hide it and to save money.