Hardwood flooring. The kind people put into their homes for warmth, durability and comfort. We've heard the knocks on wood flooring, too--expensive, hard to install, a bear to maintain and oh, so five minutes ago.
To professionals such as Tom Macedo of Valley Hardwood Flooring and Doug Mitchell of Renaissance Old World Flooring, both in Fresno, Calif., hardwood floors may be from yesterday, but they are so today.
Macedo, whose father in 1947 started Fresno Flooring, the forerunner of Valley Hardwood Flooring, began in the family business when he was 14. He delivered hardwood flooring to homes being built in Fresno after World War II.
Macedo believes hardwood floors are enduring and endearing. "A hardwood floor should outlast the mortgage," he says. "And with the new finishes, they should be easy to maintain. And, they are beautiful, comfortable to stand on and (can be repaired). What more could you ask for?" That's why, he says, hardwood floors are enjoying a resurgence in popularity.
"They were popular until along about the late '50s and early '60s, when everyone wanted wall-to-wall carpeting," he explains. "Women felt it was easier to vacuum a carpet than to maintain wood floors."
He says the Federal Housing Administration changed its rules, too. In the 1960s, the mortgage insurance agency changed its mandate in standard tract houses from hardwood floors to plywood subfloors, which people covered with carpet, linoleum and tile.
Macedo, who installs new floors and refinishes and restores old floors, says many people are ripping up the carpet in homes built in the 1930s, '40s and '50s and finding hardwood floors they want to showcase. "The new finishes make maintaining the floors a breeze," he insists.
Just ask Anne Franson, whose 55-year-old Fresno home area has hardwood floors.
The Franson house is a blend of old and new. When Anne and her husband, Don, moved into the home of her husband's childhood less than two years ago, only one room had hardwood floors. The rest of the house had a subfloor of fir, covered in carpet.
Franson asked Macedo to match the hardwood.
"We lived in a house ... which was my family home, and it had hardwood floors," says Franson. "Because I had lived with (hardwood floors), I wasn't afraid of them. I enjoy them. All I do is sweep them. Once in a while, I spray some product on a cloth and go over the floors with it, but that's all."
Her testimonial to the durability of hardwood floors, which she even has in the kitchen, is the fact that her four teen-agers haven't wreaked havoc on the floor. She has one rag rug in the area between her sink and the range to catch drips and spills, but that's it.
"I don't worry about spills. They clean up easily," she says.
The flooring in the Franson home, which cost about $20,000 for approximately 1,400 square feet, is called random white oak solid plank, which means the planks are different widths.
The planks are 3/4 inch thick and are 4, 6 and 8 inches wide, micro-beveled, stained and finished with a Swedish water-based finish. Macedo says the cost for an average hardwood floor, installed, runs $9-12 per square foot. (Carpeting, by contrast, costs about $25 a square yard for a mid-grade carpet and padding, which works out to a little more than $2 per square foot, says a spokesman for A&M Carpet in Fresno.) Renaissance's Mitchell says that while wood floors might cost more initially, they are worth it in the long run.
"They don't have to be replaced every few years like carpet and linoleum," he says. "They don't crack and break like tile and, the more they are walked on and used, the better they look."
Mitchell's company sells new flooring made to look old. Through various processes of sanding and aging, the flooring has "scars" and shading that makes it look like it has been around for a while.
Mitchell agrees with Macedo about the upkeep of hardwood floors. "The old products that were used to maintain wood floors weren't user-friendly," Mitchell says. "Refinishing was expensive and messy. With today's finishes, if a floor is properly maintained, it should never have to be refinished."
His floors are lapped together, tongue and groove, and nailed down, if the subfloor is wood. On concrete slabs, the wood is glued to the concrete. Mitchell says his product is finished on all sides, which gives added protection to the wood should it come in contact with moisture from either the top or the bottom.
He says customers may select every detail of a new floor. "They choose the species of wood, the plank sizes, texture, edge detail, finish color and top coat," says Mitchell. "They can get the floor they want."
Finishes come in tongue oil and water-based polyurethane and in satin and matte.
He estimates customers can expect to pay about $13,000 for 820 square feet, with planks 5, 7 and 9 inches wide.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)
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