Four Facts Every Designer Should Know About Wood Floors

NB: Scroll to the bottom of this post to see this month's close out bargains!

 

Four Flooring Facts That You Need to Know

Here are four wood flooring topics that can gobble up a lot of your time, but can be tamed with these facts.

 

Janka hardness

There can be a tendency to overweight the Janka scale when deciding what wood to use on a floor. This generally is a mistake.

Most importantly, the Janka scale does not apply to engineered flooring, which is a veneer of wood over a layer of softer materials. Engineered flooring's construction prevents measuring using the Janka technique as you will see below.
 

What is the Janka Scale?

Or how many pounds per square inch of pressure is necessary to push a steel ball halfway into a plank of wood? The more pressure, the higher the pressurer, the harder the wood, the higher on the Janka scale.

Diagram of Janka scale measuring process

The ball is .444 inches in diameter. Half that is .222 inches or nearly 1 quarter inch. That distance is often less than the thickness of the wood veneer on engineered flooring. The ball would then be pushed into the softer material underneath the veneer, making the measurement of the veneer's hardness a farce.
 

The Take-Away

When choosing what wood to use on a floor, determine its use and care where it's to be laid. The floor of a room that is regularly swept and cleaned of scratching grit will look better in ten years than a high Janka scale floor that has not been swept.

No wood is as hard as grains of sand. Scrape enough sand on any floor and it's going to scratch.

Janka hardness is almost never a good criterion for which wood to use.

Sanding and Refinishing

Generally speaking, sanding and refinishing a floor is more disruptive than laying a new one and probably more expensive. This fact should be on the table if the question arises, "will I be able to refinish my flooring in the future?"

Another couple of points about refinishing. Textured flooring can't be sanded without totally changing it's character. To sand from textured to flat can be pretty unpredictable.

Many textured surfaces are accented by staining. Getting rid of the texture and the stain might be a nightmare, as in this extreme example:
Textured wood floor
Photo by http://www.texturex.com/

Even on a solid wood floor, there is a very finite sanding potential. You are limited by the thickness of the top groove of the tongue-and-groove constrution, in reality only about 1 eighth of an inch.

And as we said above, sanding is very disruptive.
Tongue and Goove illustration
Illustration by http://www.startwoodworking.com

Natural floor coloring varies naturally

Mother Nature likes variety. Even wood cut from the same forest can vary from lot to lot. Expect slight variations in natural wood flooring from samples to actual product.

Of course variations are totally mitigated by stained woods.

 

Polyurethane Versus Oil Finish

We covered this before and you can read about it in depth here.

The bottom line is that polyurethane scratches overtime and the scratches will show up well in reflected light.
Scratched polyurethane floor
 

It's the urethane finish that's scratched, not the floor itself. To repair, a professional needs to sand away the polyurethane from the entire floor and reapply.

Oil

Here is the oiled floor on the main aisle of the Addison, Dicus and Bailey showroom. It's a heavily trafficked commercial floor and it's been in place for nearly seven years.

A oiled wood floor in reflected light

You can't see any scratches. If you could, they would be easy to repair. Simply apply a widely-available repair paste to the area of the scratch. Complete removal of the finish is not necessary.
 

Closeout Opportunities for Designers

Tampa

Hand-knotted wool rug in amber/blue
Amber with accents in blue. All wool. 9x12.
This is a beautiful traditional piece that was somehow left on the shelf. We would love for someone to enjoy this rug at a super price of $1500 versus the original designer wholesale price of $4016.
See it on the floor in the Tampa showroom.

 

Discontinued Wool Tufted Rugs

Here is a selection of wool rugs from a larger group from a well-known and trusted manufacturer. These and others are 4x6 in size. Come in and see the lot.
Wool area rugs 4x6
Couristan tufted rugs, 10 -15 count. Designer net price $150-$500   Sale price $75.00!
 

 

 

 

 

Orlando

Presidential Collection - FORD Multi colored in browns. 9 X 12
Hand knotted rug in multi browns Ford
The Presidential Collection is comprised of exciting contemporary and neo-classic designs. Made with wool pile, hand knotted,  the rug offers a unique blend of colors and decorative silk accents.
Original designer net $3888.00. Sale price $750.00

These closeouts will be available to Addison/Dicus & Bailey design clients through April 23.

 

 

 

Addison/Dicus & Bailey Close Out Policy

The best way to find out about our latest closeout is to subscribe to our newsletter.
You must have an account with Addison/Dicus & Bailey to buy one of these rugs.
The closeout offers will begin when we send the newsletter between the 20th and 30th of each month and last for 30 days.
No returns. No showings in homes.
Rugs can be picked up at the showroom, or we can arrange for home delivery and set up for an extra charge.
These are individual pieces in one size in one color.
First come, first serve.
Don't worry about storage wrinkles. We will steam them out.