Hardwood Floor opinions...should We Do Handscraped?

Hi K. ,
I myself have hardwood floors in our house everywhere but the kitchen my husband works doing hardwood floor for living so are type is the hardwood you sand and paint it can also be handscraped which is really nice and the care of is so great because it can be resanded down for marks ,or repainted in the future as far as hardwood floor in the kitchen I said no because of spills etc with in time the moist gets it and it comes apart and looks really bad and costs $$ to fix. Mine looks really good with four kids and dog lol .GOOD LUCK
p.s if your looking for a installer for your floors email me maybe we can help and keep in mind it's all ways better if you buy the floor and have someone to install for you saves a lot of money .

We have handscraped hardwood throughout our downstairs. I love it. It definitely doesn't show any scratches. We got hickory rather than the traditional oak. Both are hard woods and should hold up well. We also had a 5" plank installed. I would go with the 5" to 7" plank for a better looking floor as you are able to really see the hand scraping effect well. You might go to French Brown in Dallas as their flooring people are wonderful. They might be a little pricier but you get what you pay for...

We have handscraped hardwoods downstairs with tile in hallway and kitchen. I didn't want wood in the kitchen as I was concerned about spilling water etc on floor and having the boards get ruined. I love the way they look and they are so easy to maintain. My main reason for chosing was because we have two dogs who run around like crazy. Although their claws have scratched the wood, you can not see it. It would probably look really bad by now if it was traditional hardwood.

There are several wood flooring options. What is important to consider is your "wear layer". Here are my thoughts:

Factory finished engineered flooring. It has a super durable (almost baked on) seal. You'll have no problem with these floors in kitchens and bathrooms. The wear layer is farely thin and these floors are not refinishable.

Hand & scraped engineered flooring. These are raw floors that a contractor puts down in your house. They are not "solid", although all layers are made of real wood. They are durable and you can usually get a thicker wear layer than in factory finished engineered floors. If going this route, I'd get a 5/8 wear layer. After the flooring is laid out, the contractor puts it through a process of scraping, staining and sealing. These you could still put in a kitchen, although the seal layer is not as perfect as the factory finished option. I believe you could do a light refinish job on these over time, if needed.

Hand scraped, solid hard wood. It can be refinished time and time again, but is more costly than the others and is thicker as they have to lay down a sub-floor before attaching the wood of choice. This poses a problem for installing flooring in kitchens as it could raise your floor a full inch. This can pose a problem in areas of dishwashers and other appliances.

By the way, hand scraped is good for dogs. How big is your dog? We have 2 50 lb dogs and their nails will dent and scrape whatever floor we end up with. Hand scraped floors, in all their imperfect beauty, can really help mask these types of marks.

I've been researching flooring over the last few weeks and have discussed with many contractors. I have some good names, if you are interested. I think we are goign to end up with concrete floors though!

Check out Lumber Liquidators in Plano. They have the best prices we have found and my husband is a contractor. If you need a qoute just on labor you can call him at ###-###-#### and he has normally the best in the area.

We think that the prestained handscraped engineered is the best way to go expecially with pets. Good luck!

I like both. The original hardwood floors are more traditional, which is more along my taste. Just a quick note that most people don't think about before purchasing them - since there are little divots everywhere that collect dust and dirt, you have to vacuum before sweeping/swiffering and moping.

Out of curiosity, did you have your floor sealed after it was laid? 2 little boys + 1 big GSD (and we DO wear our shoes in the house) - my beige tile stayed beige and my coffee ish colored grout stayed coffee ish uniformly - but I had to redo the sealant on the grout every 3 months or so.

If your floors WEREN'T sealed - you may find it a WHOLE lot cheaper to have someone come out, sand out and refill the grout, and seal it all off. If you're not sure - test it by "spilling" some tomato juice on the grout. If it beads up and is easily toweled off, it's sealed. If it doesn't - it isn't.

I'm too cheap to spend the kind of money that hardwood costs - and I laid the tile myself, which I couldn't do with real hard wood. I didn't want the plank stuff that comes pre treated because there is no sealant on the gaps - and with boys and dogs, any opening is going to get full of something gross.

S.

We just had a salesman out to show us flooring and we are ordering handscraped. It is the most popular now, but more importantly, any scrape or scratch will blend in with the distressed look of the wood better than the plain hardwood. It will scratch, but it should take a lot of pressure to impact it/do damage. We have 2 boys and dogs and cats and he said we should not worry at all. You can always refinish it if needed, but chances are unless you plan to live in the house for more than 10+ years, you wouldn't even consider that.