Looking Forward…To the Way it Was.  Simple Floors

We are becoming more aware as a people. In just my lifetime, I have seen great strides in our abilities to see mistakes and correct them…not always and sometimes its a trial and error at best…but I do feel we try.

I think back to when I was a kid and walked among the trash along the road picking up bottles to take back to the store for refund, 2 cents for a small bottle and a nickel for the quart size. There was litter everywhere, I remember the ad on TV with the American Indian standing along side the road and a car drives by, tosses a bag of trash out the window and it lands at The proud Indians feet…a close up of his face reveals a tear.

We do see, we do recognize right from wrong…we often disagree on ways of doing things but by and large, we eventually come together and discover that new and improved can sometimes not be. You can’t blame us for trying, and credit is due for us figuring out when we goofed…but still we try.

So, what’s this got to do with Hardwood Flooring? As we have mentioned before, the use of hardwoods as flooring has been popular for centuries. The advancements in machining and our understanding of different woods, effects of moisture, use of finishes…all this and more brought us to where we are today. Along the way have been many “bumps” in the road. Long wide boards from fresh cut timber looked great…for a few weeks, then the boards pulled the nails out of the floor as they dried and shrank sometimes leaving gaps you could fall into. We tried fast growing soft woods and discovered sap wasn’t fun to keep clean, slivers hurt and they wore faster then they grew. We learned that wood moved, wore and wasn’t easy to replace…but we also KNEW that it was plentiful, beautiful, structural, practical and long lasting.

We found out that oil or wax on the floor made it easier to sweep then bare wood…Wax caught on. It repelled water and was easier to clean…but the maintenance was back breaking. Lacquer and shellac were both used with some successes but they didn’t last long in traffic areas. Polyurethane seamed to be the answer, although early ones were difficult to apply, had awful odder and took forever to dry. Some manufacturers were putting wax and later polyurethane on the boards before they left the factory, telling customers that they would endure the odder and application headaches there instead of in the home. Problem was that the manufacturing tolerances were only so good, so the boards had to be made with large ‘bevels’ on each board so that the ‘up and down’ of the edges of the boards didn’t cause slivers, wear and cleaning problems.

Sounded good, problem was that those bevels filled with food, dirt, hair and other items and were hard to remove. So consumers went back to the unfinished…by now finishes were easier to apply, faster drying and had less odder. Still took longer although the final product was MUCH better to look at and live on.

Manufacturers eager to sell the more profitable pre-finished items, made the boards more exact in machining, smaller ‘micro’ and merchandising the drying agents (aluminum oxide and others) as being beneficial to the consumer. All of these efforts met with some success. Laminates and other ‘wood’ looking products hit the market hard and failed fast, actually hurting wood sales for a minute and helping them long term. The biggest threat to pre-finished wood sales now (other then lower value and higher maintenance) is the sanitary concerns. So here we are, back to site finished (unfinished) ALWAYS known to be better for looks, value and ease of cleaning…now being known for being SEALED after being installed. This seal is amazing in its ability to keep the floor hygienic and safe for HEALTH reasons as well as ease of cleaning, looks and value.

So here we are, refreshingly looking forward to what has been with us all along, although much evolved.

Simple floors that are easy to install, carbon neutral and good for our environment, faster to install (don’t need to be careful as we install it), flat and smooth for cleaning and furniture, and now more then ever SAFE AND SANITARY for our children to play on, elderly to rest on.

Sometimes its nice to go back to our future.