This was a big decision... as well it should have been given that it is probably going to be the single largest expense on interior renovations.
Caren scoured Craigslist incessantly for deals and found few leads. She did however find a mill in Auburn, California Hardwood Producers, that was running a special on hand scraped hickory engineered flooring, so we thought we'd stop by and check it out on our way up the hill one Friday afternoon.
The hickory was nice looking stuff, but it was obvious why they were running a special on it when we compared it to other flooring samples they had on hand. Of course the most stunning stuff was salvaged solid wood flooring from one hundred year old building or another... so was the price--upwards of $14.99/ft. We'd had a price point of $4 to $5 in mind so were a little shocked when we realized that we could pay upwards of $10,000 to floor our little house if we so wanted.
Anyways, after talking with Francisca, the sales woman, we learned that solid wood flooring might not be the best choice for our situation given the temperature fluctuation that our house would experience during the Tahoe winters. Going from 55 degrees during the week when we were not in residence to 72 degrees on the weekends when Caren wanted to keep her toes warm would cause drastic expansion and contraction of the wood. Needless to say, I was relieved when we turned our attention from the reclaimed solid wood flooring displays.
Next up were questions about the differences in prices for engineered flooring... Why was the hand scraped hickory from brand X $3.00/ft cheaper than the hand scraped walnut from brand Y? And what about that $.79/ft laminate from Home Depot?
Francisca was very patient with us and answered all of our questions. And we were left with new terms like wear layer, cross grain, machine scraping, etc, etc, ad infinitum bouncing around in our heads. We did leave that afternoon with a pretty good idea of what we wanted though.
And Caren scoured Craigslist for another week or two...
Ultimately, we ended up back at California hardwood Producers and ordered 500 square feet of a beautiful hand scraped walnut floor from Hallmark Hardwoods. 500 square feet would not be enough to floor the whole house, but it would be enough to finish the kitchen, living room, and hallway. Given that we chose to pay a little more per foot to get quality flooring... not $14.99 per foot by any stretch of the imagination, but not the $2.99 per foot that lured us into the place either... 500 feet was about all the budget could handle. The bedrooms will have to wait...
And, as Francisca was swiping my credit card I was thinking about lessons in loss leaders that my grandfather, perhaps one of the world's greatest salesmen, had taught me while we sat in a boat and waited for the fish to bite... Francisca had gotten us into the store with the $2.99 per foot Hickory, then let us ogle the really expensive stuff, then told us why we didn't need to spend that much money, then sold us on something less expensive than the top of the line, but more expensive than what she had used to get us into the store in the first place...
She would have made my grandfather proud!
In all fairness... California Hardwood Producers has been excellent to work with. They delivered our flooring to Tahoe, a two hour drive from Auburn, for gas money. They only charged us for a week's rental of the flooring nailer even though they knew we would have it for at least three weeks, and they off loaded their truck into our living room while stepping over freshly grouted tile without missing a beat. I can highly recommend them as Caren and I are more than happy with our purchase.
Enough babble... so, without further ado, some pics!
Delivered on a Wednesday by the great people at California Hardwood Producers. They were super careful about avoiding the partially grouted stonework at the front door. Stacked behind the flooring is paneling that will go in the kitchen, also delivered by California Hardwood Producers, and up on top of the flooring is the hated wiring that Kelby and I fussed with all last weekend and I blogged about in a previous post.
Unpackaged and stacked by length on a Friday evening, then left to acclimatize for eight days.
About two thirds of the way through the install last Saturday we realized that we would need a floor puller to install the last course that would run right up next to the wall. We made a quick trip to the hardware store in hopes that they might have one... but the guy had no clue what we were talking about. So, I thought I'd make due with a nail puller... think again... the first board I tried to pull into place got scratched, and I quickly nixed that idea. The final course will have to wait until I can get a proper floor puller.
What's left undone after a ten hour day. We still have about nine courses of flooring to set in the kitchen and the final course in the hallway. Should take a couple of hours next Saturday...
I'll leave you with a couple of observations I made before we left on Sunday morning:
- Hand scraped walnut is much louder than particleboard subflooring
- Dark wood shows every speck of dust under the right lighting conditions
- Dark flooring really subdues a room
- I am totally stoked on our floor choice!
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