Hello AT,
I have a flooring problem. I have gorgeous wood floors in my apartment. Recently, an area needed mending, and the super put in some horrid looking material that's not even real wood. The coloring doesn't match, nor does the finish. Nor is it level. Design horror, I know.
The area is in between the living room and the bedroom, which already have 2 different types of wood flooring, but at least the colors and the finishes match...
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Here's the catch : The super says he couldn't find any wood, that's why he put this floor in, but is willing to redo it if I can find the material. I just need the wood, he will stain, and lay them. (not even sure if they come stained?)
[Pic # 2 (first pic) - left side is my living room, right side is the horrid stuff. Pic # 3 (second pic), left side is the bedroom, and right side is the new floor. Either the original living room or the bedroom wood will do]
I know someone out there must be able to help me. I'm in dire need. Please.
Thanks all! Asli
Dear Asli,
Good for you! Your super may have sticker shock because wood IS more expensive, but definitely try to do it. The wood you have looks like oak, so any oak would do.
We've always found our flooring through our flooring guy, Vincent Devaney, who is worth calling and dropping our name if you want to find his source (in Brooklyn or Queens).
You could also check out Lumber Liquidators, but people have had reservations about them.
Anyone??
ecofriendlyflooring.com
easy to install ON YOUR OWN and looks amazing. oh, and its all ecofriendly.
On This Old House they used wood flooring from the closets.
Ewwww. You got parqueted (a new verb!) by the Landlord. I feel your pain, our apartment has parquet from one end to the other. I hate it.
Living room stuff shouldn't be hard to match at all. Bedroom stuff would be really hard, and even installed it would look different because it is new. Why not do something different in the transition, like ceramic tile or FLOR tiles?
check out http://www.greenhomenyc.org - their website isn't the greatest, but they stock recycled building materials (taken from their 'deconstruction' work &/or from donations and may have wood flooring in stock. If you call them they can give you a good idea of what they've got & maybe other possible sources if they don't have any. Contractors can be a great source of materials as they frequently keep the reusable materials from const. jobs they do. If you don't know any contractors or want to call around looking for excess materials, try craigslist or wastematch (.org i think but not 100%) . I've come across contractors selling all sorts of things they've held onto from sites. There are also always lumber yards, but this isn't so env friendly unless you get off cuts or excess from another job they're working on.Good luck!
Hi Asli,
My experience with installing new hardwood flooring is that any new wood you buy today is never going to have the same sort of rich glow of older wood (time/age makes the wood darken or become more rich looking.) New hardwood flooring is just that new wood so it often has a green-ish hue to it. If your landlord installs new hardwood, even if its of good quality, theres a very good chance that the contrast between the young and the old wood hues is going to look just as bad if not worse than what you have right now. I should know came home to find our GC did this in our place, and it looks awful! But it was too cost prohibitive to have them redone, so What I would recommend is seeing if you can get your hands on some old hardwood floors that have been pulled out of an older home. Build It Green (http://www.bignyc.org/) in Astoria might be a good source for something like this. Otherwise, if your landlord does decide to install new (as in young) hardwood, then I would have him/her pay to have a really good floor refinisher come in to stain/poly the floors. I think its possible to work the young wood a bit with stain and bring it closer to the hue of the older wood. But if they simply put a clear poly on it (water or oil-based) youre most likely going to still have greenish floors.
If you need the name of a fantastic floor refinisher let me know. I know a great one.
Good luck!
I'm not really helping.. just offering info.
I talked to my floor guy - I have beautifully refinished 50 year-old wood floors. He said that the beautiful variation in the older floors is because the trees were older. Today's wood is harvested from younger trees (likely on hormones) so they don't have the great strations like the old wood.
however, I was recently in a new home with wood floors that had nice variation... it was hickory... but that will be much lighter than your existing floors.
Just thought I'd chime in.
Hi everyone
Thanks so much for the links! I was sort of hoping to find some kind of old wood as well, so will definitely check out the links. And thanks Maxwell for identifiying my oak floors...
I don't have any helpfull advice, but I just wanted to say that I am totally in LOVE with your bedroom floor! Gorgeous!
Just another vote for doing something completely different in that area.
Harley - who is your refinisher? Would love to know!
dno't know if this will help, but i work for an interior design firm and we have all our floors sourced, stained, and installed from a couple of different companies, all of whom can match existing to a T (including sourcing older wood, if you're willing to pay). it might be very expensive but it doesn't hurt to call:
new wood
ij peiser
norwegian wood
wide plank
good luck!
thanks everyone!
Harley - yes, would be great if we could have the name of your refinisher!
I am intrigued by the idea to do something different there, but the area also is adjacent to the bathroom with white boring tiles, so not sure what would go with that?
I should have posted a pic of that too. It really is a critical area in the apartment :)
I had new real hardwood floors in the main level of my house kitchen,living room and dining room. The floors are great except for one area a couple of the boards are getting gaps in them were they connect with another board. ...