We had the Flooring Outlet install a 9/16" thick, chiseled, handscraped, natural hickory hardwood floor throughout our entire house (with the exception of the kitchen, laundry and bathrooms which were already tiled). They pulled out the old carpet, installed a glued down 1/4" cork underlayment (at our request) to bring the level of the new floor closer to the tile (which was 1 1/2" above the subfloor). They put their underlayment on top of that and then installed the product as a seemless, glued together, floating wood floor (per their recommendation for our particular (raised) foundation). Along the way they had to trim the tile to make proper thresholds (with associated transition pieces) between tile and wood floors. They reused the 9/16" moulding (at our request) in the main living areas and replaced our skimpy (1/4" or so) moulding in the back bedrooms with matching 9/16" moulding (in retrospect, it would have been easier to paint later if I'd just replaced all the moulding (my bad because I was trying to trim costs)). No 1/4" quarter rounds were used anywhere except where the new floor met the wood cabinets that transition into our kitchen (yay, because I hate the look of quarter rounds around moulding!). The only other transition piece used was at our back sliding door (impressive and intricately cut). They also cut the raised tile for our wood burning stove for the new wood floor to slide under so it would require no transition piece.
We had some old carpeting throughout the house that had been through twenty years of dogs, cats and country living. The nap was flat, it was lumpy in places and the transitions were becoming thread bare. It was making me sick and the spouse and I had been debating replacing it for years. We disagreed about how we wanted the area around our wood stove. Somehow the project kept being put off. We'd had part of the house tiled a few years back and we wondered why we didn't just tile throughout. We wondered whether we should replace the carpet with carpet and extend the threshold around the wood stove with more tile. I wasn't happy about either prospect because of the complexity of matching tile and tile transitions and the fact that I didn't want our small living space in the fire room cut up with a bigger transition around the wood stove. I finally began investigating wood floors. because I had seen a lovely wood floor down the street at my neighbors. I'd never lived on a wood floor before so I knew nothing about them but this floor was soooo beautiful.....
I followed that lead to Rick and Tina's store. They had a beautiful selection of hardwood (and tile for that matter). And the selection was not overwhelming if you know what I mean. There was a particular handscraped, chiseled, natural finish I fell in love with right off the bat but my husband wouldn't go for it. He wanted us to do the project ourselves. Long story short, I spent six more months looking into every flooring method and every store. I haunted Lowes and Home Depot. What it came down to is that physically, I couldn't handle it. Furthermore, none of these stores had as beautiful and sturdy, quality product as the Flooring Outlet. The fact that I needed (wanted really) to raise my sublfoor would require the use of additional underlayment because many of the products were so thin. The ones that weren't, were made out of softer woods. No one seemed to have what I wanted nor did they have one with such a durable a finish. So I wound up where I started (with hubby's permission) and had the Flooring Outlet do the job.
Thank goodness I did. For just a few thousand dollars, we had three people working more or less full time for ten days (Brian, Nyla and Ronnie). They got to do the tile trimming and haul in the heavy materials. They worked with us through every concern and even helped us with furniture and working around some of the heavy furniture. They were clean and paid attention to every detail.
It was finally all done and the results were magnificent. The floor is so easy to care for I was totally unprepared (my worries about scratching, denting, spills were unfounded with reasonable precautions). I have old pets that get 'sick' and it's a simple wipe up. There is less dust over all and I can do so much with just a quick dry mop. When people enter my home for the first time, their eyes are glued to the floor and there's almost this sort of gasp or sigh as their eyes follow the expanse of the floor! I don't care about keeping up with the Jones' but I can't help but be proud of my floor. And the bottom line is that it cost about the same for materials as it would have if I'd done the job myself. I learned an important lesson. It's not necessarily cheaper (or wiser) to go with the big DIY stores. read more