From the crews
Hardwood floor questions, answered the way we answer them on site.
April 21, 2026
Refinish or replace? How to judge a worn hardwood floor
Most worn hardwood floors can be refinished, and the ones that cannot usually fail on one of four checks: how much wear layer is left, whether the floor is still moving, how deep any water damage goes, and whether matching boards can be sourced. Many older floors land in the middle, with the worst boards replaced and the whole floor sanded and finished as one surface.
April 21, 2026
Site-finished or prefinished hardwood? Which one makes sense and when
Prefinished hardwood is the better choice when schedule rules, because it arrives coated from the factory and is ready for traffic the day it goes down. Site-finished hardwood is the better choice when the floor is a design feature, because it is sanded flat after installation with no bevels between boards and can take any stain color. On most custom builds we work on, site-finished wins, and on remodels with a tight clock, prefinished usually does.
April 21, 2026
Wide plank hardwood floors and the trade-offs nobody mentions
Wide plank hardwood looks calmer and shows more of each board's grain than narrow strip, and it performs well in a Minnesota house as long as the house holds its humidity through the winter and the subfloor is flat. For planks over six inches we recommend engineered construction in most homes, because solid boards that wide open noticeable gaps every January unless the house is humidified year-round.
Free estimate · West metro and Wright County
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