Hardwood FlooringNEWS-BLOG

The Big Decision: Is It Better To Refinish Hardwood Floors Or Replace Them With New hardwood?

Well this depends on a number of factors including the condition/age of your hardwood, how much you like your current hardwood and what your budget looks like.

Generally, it should almost always cost less to refinish your hardwood floors than replace them. Aside, from the new-wood expense If you replace them, you’ll also be paying for the labor involved in pulling up and hauling away your existing wood flooring.

If you plan on refinishing the floors but sections of your hardwood are damaged (pet stains or minor water stains), these boards can be replaced when your floor is refinished. Even if you replace some portions and refinish the vast majority of your wood floors, it will still be less costly then replacing the entire wood flooring

So, even though is less expensive the refinish than replace your hardwood flooring, there are times when it makes good sense to go with new hardwood flooring.

If your floors are extremely old — 100 years — and worn, and have been refinished many times, it may be time for a new floor.

2) If you can see the “tongue” where the boards fit together, it’s probably time for a new floor.

3) If your floors are rather bouncy and/or don’t seem very sturdy, it’s time for a new floor.

4) Holiday Gatherings: It you’ve suddenly decided to plan on hosting holiday parties and your wood floors are a “mess,” replacing the floors will usually take less time than refinishing them.

Refinishing can be time consuming, especially if you’re home is fully furnished, and have furniture everywhere.

When it comes to deciding refinish or replace your hardwood floors, you want to consult with an expert wood flooring contractor, like Scott from Elegant Floors. Give him a call and he’ll be happy to come out to your home for a free consultation . Scotts will also provide you with free estimates for refinishing or the sales and installation of new wood floors:

Tel: (408) 773- 8624 | https://elegant-floors.com/

After wood flooring repairs — Becautifull new red oak flooring installed in this modern dining room of this Palo Alto residence.

Your Home’s Entryway Stairs: Hardwood Flooring Vs Carpet — Part 2

Part 2

CARPET VS HARDWOOD HEALTH

Some natural carpets made wool, jute, seagrass and sisal have less of an impact on home health and the environment compared to synthetic carpeting. Wool and other natural fibers are renewable and break down quickly without defiling the home or the domain.

By contrast, most synthetic carpets are made with petroleum, which is non-renewable and breaks down unevenly, giving off explosive organic compounds (VOCs) as it wears over time.

Hardwood is sustainable material, particularly if steps are taken to ensure conscientious harvesting and planting of trees. Homeowners can find a wide range hardwood flooring that lend to healthy options that are kid and pet-friendly and contain no harsh chemicals.

CARPET VS HARDWOOD DURABILITY

In terms of strength and resilience hardwood flooring is the hands-down winner. Hardwood floors that consist of hardwearing materials that can last 50 to 100 years if maintained as they should be. Carpets, typically only last as long as the quality of the material. Fundamental grade carpets typically will last 5 to 10 years before they need to be swapped out, while higher-quality carpets can last from to 10 to 15 years.

WHY CHOOSE HARDWOOD FLOORS VS CARPET?

After much debate, the decision to choose either carpet or hardwood floors is really up to one’s preference. It’s quite common to find carpet in bedrooms because people enjoy a softer, warmer surface for one’s bare feet. With a spacious house of say two or three stories, carpet can also help in minimizing noise. However, when you look at the overall cost, maintenance, durability and home health associated with hardwood floors vs carpet, there’s no question that quality hardwood flooring is the the best choice.

Carpeted stairs

What is your preference between hardwood stairs or carpeted stairs?

Choosing Your Home Entryway Stairs: Hardwood Flooring or Carpet – Part 1

Carpet vs hardwood floors: It’s a popular topic in the flooring industry that’s subject to much debate and opinion. And when the subject is stairs, the debate is no different. There’s not right or wrong. For some it’s a matter of style. For some it’s maintenance, while for others it’s cost; and with others it might be safety. Still, there’s always thought about added value to ones home.

Style: What is the overall floor plan of your house? Is it a mix of carpet and hardwood? Or is it mostly carpeting and you would like to add hardwood stairs? Not only will those hardwood stairs add a whole new look to your home, but it just might inspire you to continue with more new interior additions such as adding hardwood to your entry so it matches and compliments your stairs.

Comparing Costs: If your current stairs carpet needs replacing, pulling the old carpet and installing new will definitely cost less than the overall expense of hardwood floor stairs.

Comparing Maintenance Costs: White oak hardwood stairs. White Oak Flooring

In short, hardwood flooring is much simpler to clean and maintain compared to carpeting. Hardwood floors can be swept or damp-mopped to clean dust, spills, surface stains, and other debris. We suggest using a quality mop with warm water with a touch of a mild dish soap, Ivory, Dawn, Ivory or Palmolive

It’s a hard task to maintain the like-new shape of carpet because of dust, dirt, and allergens become trapped within the fibers over time. For this reason, it’s important that carpet is vacuumed regularly to help free these particles. However, some stains can be far more taxing to remove, often times requiring deep shampoo cleaning or special chemicals and treatments.

It might best to a have a professional clean them yearly. While certain types of pretreated and synthetic fiber carpets are designed to resist stains, hardwood flooring is arguably easier to maintain in the long run.

To Be Continued

What Rooms Should Not Not Have Hardwood Flooring Installed?

If you are dealing with an honest hardwood flooring contractor and/or a showroom store, they should not be trying trying and steer you into 100 percent wood flooring for your entire house.

Forget The Laundry Room
Wood floors don’t belong in your laundry room. When you consider the potential damage to wooden floors from leaks, pools of water and spilled detergent, go with flooring that is more water resistant. Stay away from wood and go with a sturdy option like tile instead, even water-resistant LVT.

Forget the Foyer
Do you really want dirt and sand are constantly being tracked in? Think of water and moisture from wet shoes and your hardwood flooring entryway will quickly go south!

The Bathroom Floors
Do not be tempted to have hardwood bathroom flooring. Bad idea!Hardwood flooring really is a horrific match for bathrooms. It’s not secret that moisture can cause major damage to hardwood floors over time. Things like steamy showers and spills can prematurely age wood floors and creating damage.

For immediate destruction to wood flooring an overflowing toilet could quickly happen spell the end for your wood floors. There is also the threat of mold. Wood flooring is especially a poor choice in a bathroom if you have a household with younger children. An option like tile is a much better choice because of the way it is capable of handling moisture.

What About the Kitchen?
Hardwood has a place in every home, but definitely not every room. Forget thinking about wooden flooring in the kitchen. Like the bathroom, leaking faucets, broken pipes and dishwashers will certainly cause permanent damage to your wood flooring.Consider engineered flooring, LVT. It resists moisture better than solid hardwood. And it looks like hardwood!

Waterproof LVT (luxury vinyl tile) tile is not only smart choice your for kitchen but a beautiful choice too!

What’s the Difference Between Red Oak Flooring and White Oak Flooring?

Oak flooring is the most favorite tree strain use for hardwood flooring. And with good reason – oak is easily available, affordable, hardy and stunningly exquisite What some people don’t know is there are two different genus of oak flooring readily available – red oak and white oak.

If you’re planning on having new hardwood flooring installed either species will generally work out just fine. The wood you select may depend on the end-use and color you have in mind for the room’s overall look. Both are strong and rank high on the Janka hardness listing. The biggest difference between the costs of red oak flooring and white oak flooring may vary a little depending on regions. However, costs are generally the same

So, what are the biggest differences between red oak and white oak flooring?
Grain. Red oak can have a stronger grain pattern, with more variation. White oak has a smoother, more uniform appearance. Some folks preference might be the strong graining of red oak – both for the appearance and because the strong graining does hide scratches and dents quite well. Others prefer the cleaner simpler visuals that white oak is known for.

Matching Existing Stairs. If you are intent on matching current stairs, knowing what wood they is imperative in planning your decision which hardwood to purchase. Typically, you will want an exact match any flooring to the stairs they will be butted into. Mind you that Red oak is more common in stair treads, saddles, banisters and other transitions than white oak. And chance are, If you already have oak stairs, they’re probably red oak. However, if you are building new stair treads or replacing the old, choose whichever oak species you’re more passionate about.

Red oak or white oak, they’re both beautiful, you will not lose from choosing one oak over the other. When one gazes at oak flooring, the warmth and elegance just draws you in.

For all your new, hardwood flooring needs and installation or repairs, call 25-year family-owned Elegant Floors of Sunnyvale and the entire South Bay: (408) 773-8624. https://elegant-floors.com/

Red oak hardwood flooring.
White oak solid hardwood flooring.

Repairing Wood Flooring with Termite Damage

If you notice something awry with your wood flooring, there could be a big problems with termites.

Termite damage is not always apparent, but there are certain signals in your wood floors you don’t want to ignore. Known as the silent destroyer, termites generally consume dead wood from the inside out. Termites weaken the inner structure of wood causing uncommon sounds when walking on them

Hardwoods weakened by termites can also creak or squeak due to movement between loose planks, or because the subfloor and supports are compromised.

Floors that sag and buckle, have loose boards, small holes, or crumbling wood also indicate possible termite damage. A termite infestation can become very dangerous when the destruction causes floors or other parts of the house to collapse, and it’s imperative that you call a pest control specialist as soon as possible once you determine that you have termites to prevent any further damage to your home.

After your termite problem has been taken care of by the pest control specialist, give Elegant Floors a call so we can assess the damage. If you would like us to completely replace your flooring with new boards or try and save your existing flooring by performing repairs, we’ll let you know what’s feasible.

Repairing hardwood floors with termite damage, is pretty straightforward, as long there’s no foundation issues. There may be some boards where the depth of the damage is not that deep. In that case, we would then us wood filler then sand and refinish. Where the termite damage excessive we’ll need to replace boards. We’ll pull the boards that need replacing and install new planks then sand and refinish.

For more information and free estimates please call: (408) 773-8624

teri@elegant-floors.com | elegant-floors.com

If you notice something awry with your wood flooring, there could be a big problems with termites.

Termite damage is not always apparent, but there are certain signals in your wood floors you don’t want to ignore. Known as the silent destroyer, termites generally consume dead wood from the inside out. Termites weaken the inner structure of wood causing uncommon sounds when walking on them

Hardwoods weakened by termites can also creak or squeak due to movement between loose planks, or because the subfloor and supports are compromised.

Floors that sag and buckle, have loose boards, small holes, or crumbling wood also indicate possible termite damage. A termite infestation can become very dangerous when the destruction causes floors or other parts of the house to collapse, and it’s imperative that you call a pest control specialist as soon as possible once you determine that you have termites to prevent any further damage to your home.

After your termite problem has been taken care of by the pest control specialist, give Elegant Floors a call so we can assess the damage. If you would like us to completely replace your flooring with new boards or try and save your existing flooring by performing repairs, we’ll let you know what’s feasible.

Repairing hardwood floors with termite damage, is pretty straightforward, as long there’s no foundation issues. There may be some boards where the depth of the damage is not that deep. In that case, we would then us wood filler then sand and refinish. Where the termite damage excessive we’ll need to replace boards. We’ll pull the boards that need replacing and install new planks then sand and refinish.

For more information and free estimates please call: (408) 773-8624

teri@elegant-floors.com | elegant-floors.com

BEFORE – San Jose residential: Family room and bedroom entryway floors in need of termite repairs and refinishing.

“After” photo of repair and refinishing San Jose living room.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Wood Floor

With the variety of woods, colors and finishes available today, choosing wood floor can be mind-boggling.

Homeowners evaluating new flooring owe it to themselves to consider the benefits and beauty of wood. Wood floors are comfortable, durable and surprisingly affordable, and nothing quite compares to the character and warmth they bring to every room in the house.

While there is a myriad of choices available, not every type of wood flooring is suitable for every application. If you are shopping for a wood floor, here are some things to keep in mind.

There are primarily two types of wood flooring products—solid hardwood and engineered hardwood. Solid wood flooring is milled from solid wood logs and is joined with a traditional tongue and groove along both the long and short edges.

Solid wood is available prefinished or unfinished, in strips and planks ranging in thickness from 5/16 to ¾ inches. Strips are 1½-inch- to 2¼-inches-wide and planks are 3 to 8 inches wide.

Engineered wood flooring is comprised of multiple layers of plywood and composite material, and topped with a layer of solid hardwood. Engineered wood flooring comes in thicknesses ranging from ?- to ¾-inch and from 3 to 10 inches wide; the hardwood layer on top ranges in thickness from .6 millimeters to 4 millimeters.

While both types offer the same beauty of real hardwood, the primary difference between solid hardwood and engineered flooring is in the floor’s composition. Since solid wood flooring is subject to expand and contract relative to a home’s humidity it needs to be installed on the ground floor or above grade. Engineered flooring, which is more stable due to its multi-ply construction, can be installed on all levels of the home.

For further details and information call Elegant Floors: (408) 778-8624

You can never go wrong choosing with red oak flooring.

Maintaining Your Wood Flooring Starts With Sanding & Refinishing Every 3-5 Years

Over time, when your wood flooring begins to lose it’s sheen, they can be renewed through re-coating. This involves applying a new coat of wood floor finish. How often you’ll have to do this depends on the your household’s lifestyle. Before your floors can be re-coated they will need to be re-fininished. For normal warn hardwood floors, sanding will most likely be required. Here’s how we do it with minimal dust and mess…

Elegant Floors offers Dust-Free Refinishing for hardwood floors with the Atomic Dust Containment System (DCS) by Bonakemi, the most advanced and powerful dust containment system available. Traditional hardwood floor sanding is typically an extremely dusty process – a dust-storm in your home, lingering dust in your air-ducts, and a cleanup headache that feels like it will never end. The Atomic DCS provides a cleaner, healthier and faster sanding process reducing dust far beyond what the traditional sanding process generates.

The innovative concept of the Atomic system is to have a powerful vacuum engine connected to all of the sanding equipment, evacuating the airborne dust generated from the sanding process, and collecting it into our atomic trailer, which is parked outside your home. We also utilize powerful, portable dust containment systems.

Elegant Floors is a family-owned hardwood flooring business that has been taking good care South Bay homeowners and businesses’ flooring needs for more than 25 years. From sales and installation to repair and refinishing, you’ll feel that you and your hardwood floors are in good hands.

Tune-in next month for a more detailed process of The Bona Atomic DCS Process:

Questions? Call: (408) 773-8624 | elegant-floors.com/ | yelp.com/biz/elegant-floors-sunnyvale

San Jose residential living room and entry badly in need of wood flooring repairs.

“After” photo of repair and refinishing San Jose living room.

Hardwood Flooring Maintenance Adds Beauty & Value

Hardwood Flooring Home Maintenance

Hardwood flooring: Whether it’s brand new or generational, it’s an investment worth protecting. Not only does it add beauty and warmth to every room where it’s installed, but it also adds value to your home. That is as long as your hardwood floors remain in good shape.

Say you decide you need to sell your home — for whatever reason — and you’re looking for a fairly quick sale. But what if your home contains a large amount of hardwood flooring that’s in need of refinishing. Any/all interested buyers will, of course, not offer what you’re hoping to get — on the high end — because of the impending expense of hiring a floor contractor to return your hardwood flooring to its former gleaming glory.

Aside from cleaning your hardwood flooring, there are a few every-day preventive measures you can employ to extend the beauty and “health” of your floors.

Use Furniture Pads

Scratches are some of the hardest issues to solve in wood flooring. While some scratching is inevitable, you can can be proactive thus preventing excess damage One of the best ways to eliminate some scratching is to add furniture pads to the legs of your chairs, sofas, and tables.

Sweep or Dust

Even if you don’t allow shoe-wearing in home, dust finds a way to reside on all surfaces, wood floors included. And then finds it’s way into the wood’s grain and between floor boards. If you have cats and dogs who shed even a little, there is a hygiene issue to consider. So sweep or dust!

Vacuum Once A Week

If this sounds like work, it is. But come on — it’s not hard work! Weekly vacuuming is key to maintaining a clean home, as you’ll also pick up crumbs and dirt you missed while sweeping your flooring. Not into vacuuming on your own? Invest in an IRobot Rooma or another robotic vacuum!

Refinish Every 3-5 Years

“Over time, when your wood flooring begins to lose it’s sheen, they can be renewed through re-coating. This involves applying a new coat of wood floor finish. How often you’ll have to do this depends on the your household’s lifestyle. And when it comes to refinishing your hardwood flooring, do yourself a big favor by calling Elegant Floors in Sunnyvale, CA.

Elegant Floors is a family-owned hardwood flooring business that has been taking good care South Bay homeowners and businesses’ flooring needs’ for more than 25 years. From sales and installation to repair and refinishing, you’ll feel that you and your hardwood floors are in good hands.

Tel: (408) 773-8624 | https://elegant-floors.com/. | https://www.yelp.com/biz/elegant-floors-sunnyvale

LVT Home Maintenance – Easy-Peasy Cleaning

Luxury vinyl tile are waterproof planks which makes it relatively simple to clean your LVT flooring. And though it’s a waterproof product — just one of its strong selling points — you don’t want to drench your flooring. Keep in mind that whatever you choose to clean your floors with, always go light on the liquid: a little bit goes a long way as standing water can damage or stain vinyl flooring

Initially: You may want you use a soft-cloth cotton mop or a soft-bristle broom to sweep and pick up dust any other particles.

Cleaning Solutions — Warm Water: If your LVT flooring is a year old or less, you can probably get away with using a slightly damp mop or towels that you’ve retired from from the bathroom.

Cleaning Solutions — Dish Soap & Warm Water:

When using dish soap — Ivory, Joy, Palmolive, Dawn — and warm water, you’ll want mix a solution of an ounce dish soap to a about a gallon of warm water. Take note of how your LVT flooring reacts afterwards to this solution. Soap may work as a great vinyl floor cleaner, but soap scum may leave a film that actually collects dirt.

Cleaning Solutions — Apple Cider Vinegar: This is one of the best cleansers for vinyl flooring The acidity in the vinegar helps remove dirt and grime without leaving a buildup of soap or wax. Simply mix one cup of cider vinegar with a gallon of hot water and use a damp mop to clean, rinsing the mop frequently with hot water.

Mops: If you’re using a cleaning solution other than water, it’s best to make use of two mops: one to apply the cleaning solution and a second to rise your flooring. Also it’s best to use a microfiber mop — not a string mop — which will be difficult to squeeze out the liquid without causing a mess.

Contact Elegant Floors All Your Wood-Flooring Needs:

Call: (650) 961-1139 or (408) 773-8624 Ask for Teri or Scott

Competive pricing elegant-floors.com | elegantloors@pacbell.net

Residential life-time warranty | Commercial warranty 5-25 years

Family-owned since 1995

Before Cleaning…

“After” cleaning LVT flooring

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