Getting there
Edina is about 55 miles from our Cokato shop, which makes it one of the longer drives we make. We take Highway 12 east to I-394 and then Highway 100 south. We schedule Edina in full days and multi-day jobs rather than short visits.
What is under the carpet in a 1920s Country Club house
The Country Club district and Morningside were built out in the 1920s and 1930s, and the floors were 2 1/4 inch red oak strip on the main level, with maple in some kitchens and back halls and fir on the second floor in the more modest houses. Nearly a century later, that oak is still there in most of these homes. Some has been under carpet since the 1970s, and some has been refinished three or four times. That history is the issue. A 3/4 inch solid strip floor starts life with roughly a quarter inch of wood above the tongue, and every full sand takes some of it. After enough passes the nail heads start to show, the tongue gets exposed and the floor cannot take another aggressive sand. Before we quote a refinish in Country Club we measure the remaining thickness at a register or a threshold. If there is enough left, we do a full sand with a fine progression of grits, which removes less wood. If there is not, we recommend a screen and recoat, a light hand sand in the worst spots, or replacement of the room with new solid red oak in the same width so it matches the rest of the house. Repairs come with the territory. Radiators were moved and walls came out over the decades. We lace new red oak into old and sand both together so the patch disappears.
Stain choices on old red oak, and why maple is different
Old-growth red oak from the 1920s is tighter grained than new stock and takes stain evenly, but it still has red oak's pink undertone. Owners who want the current pale, neutral look sometimes expect it to come out like white oak. It will not on its own. We test stain samples on the floor itself after sanding, because the same color looks different on 95-year-old oak than on a sample board. Light tones with a touch of gray or a whitewash cut the pink. A medium brown warms it. Clear finish keeps the honey color most people associate with these houses. The maple in back halls and kitchens is a different animal. It is dense, it blotches under dark pigment and it will never match the oak in the front rooms under the same stain. We either keep it natural as a deliberate change at the kitchen door or, in a full remodel, replace it with oak so the level reads as one floor.
New floors in Edina teardowns and additions
The other half of our Edina work is installation. Teardowns across the city, and additions on older houses, call for new hardwood that has to meet the design and often has to meet an original floor at a doorway. In new builds that means wide plank white oak, often engineered over radiant, finished on site. In additions it means matching species and width to what is there, or planning a transition detail where a match is not realistic. Solid hardwood installation is still the right call on a wood-framed main floor in an older house, and we do plenty of it here.
Refinishing hardwood floors in Edina
If you own an older Edina house, read our hardwood floor refinishing page before you call. It explains the thickness check, the grit progression and the stain sampling we do on old red oak, and most of our Country Club work follows that page exactly. How a refinish runs, start to finish.
Around Edina
- Country Club district
- Morningside
- Indian Hills
- 50th and France
- Southdale
Hardwood services we bring to Edina
- Floor refinishing
- Floor restoration
- Floor repair
- Stain color matching
- Solid Hardwood Install
- Floor replacement
Every hardwood service, on one page.
Questions from Edina homeowners
Our 1926 Country Club house has been sanded before. How do we know if the floor can take another?
We measure it. A solid strip floor needs about 1/8 inch of wood above the tongue for a safe full sand. We check at a floor register or a threshold. Below that, we recommend a screen and recoat or a very light sand, and we tell you before any machine touches the floor.
Can old red oak be made to look like white oak?
Not exactly. Red oak carries a pink undertone that white oak does not, and a clear finish will show it. Light stains with a gray or white base cut the pink and get close to a pale white oak look. We sample three or four colors on your sanded floor so you can judge them in your own light.
We're putting an addition on a 1930s house. Will the new floor match?
Species and width can match if the original is 2 1/4 inch red oak, which most Edina homes of that era have. New oak will still look slightly different from old-growth wood in the grain. Sanding and finishing the old and new floor together in one stain gets them as close as they will get.
We're buying a 1960s house in Indian Hills with carpet throughout. Is there oak underneath?
Very likely in the living room, hall and bedrooms. Houses from that era in Edina almost always had oak strip on the main floor, and carpet went over it later. Lift a corner in a closet to confirm. Kitchens and baths usually did not get hardwood, so plan on new boards there if you want one continuous floor.
Nearby
We also work in Minneapolis, Eden Prairie and Minnetonka. Everywhere we work.