Why Buy From Us?

 Our plank floor will cost you less and install far easier than any floor on the market!

 Value

 Although we use the best materials you can buy, we ensure our prices are the best you can find for any similar flooring. 

We include many extras that you won’t get elsewhere, like custom thresholds and authentic 18^th century nails.

 Our wood is solid 3/4 inch, select grade, kiln dried oak and our finishes are the best in the world! (Basic Streetshoe XL and OSMO Hardwax Oil).  

Easy Installation 

It has taken us several years to perfect a method of producing authentic, pre-finished, wide-plank flooring that can be easily and consistently installed by the homeowner or any contractor.   

To perfect our methods, we’ve installed many floors ourselves in every imaginable situation from 275 year old farmhouses to new construction.  I doubt that you will encounter an installation challenge that we haven’t dealt with*.   

We hand cut our planks to make sure they fit together easily.  

We employ traditional hand tools to build every floor from scratch. We add just enough distressing and  we pay attention to details like matching custom thresholds and authentic 18^th century style nails color-matched to the floor.

 We are confident that our plank floors are equal or superior to any wide plank floor on the market today.  

* (The only limitation we suggest is that you do not install our planks below grade or attach them directly to concrete floors.)

We also......

 ..Select the best wood

 ....Keep the boards in balance

 ......Attach them through the surface

 ........Plan for the inevitable gaps between boards

Select the Best Wood

Solid Oak - Our wood of choice is Red Oak.  We use  the finest kiln dried, cabinet grade Red Oak lumber available!    Red Oak is a great hardwood for stained or painted plank flooring. It is very durable, stable, and provides a terrific finishing surface.  Red Oak was commonly used in colonial homes throughout New England.

While other companies call 4" boards wide plank, we use boards  7" and wider!.  They use a lot of #2 & #3 grade lumber in 18 inch lengths.  We use boards from 3 ft to 12 ft long and custom design the layout to be visually appealing..

All boards are solid 3/4"  kiln dried to less than 9% moisture content.  We do not use glued up pieces sold as wide planks.

Keep the Boards in Balance

WE FINISH THE BACKS OF EVERY BOARD WITH A THICK COAT OF COMMERCIAL SEALER!

This is important! Our floors will resist cupping better than most other wood floors.

All wood will move with changes in the seasons, especially changes in humidity. The key is to keep the boards in balance through these changes and plan for the movement.

When wood is properly kiln dried, then planed to a finished thickness, it is in balance. If it is straight at this point you can keep it that way only if you keep the stresses (mainly moisture content) in check that want to warp the board to a new shape.

The only way to do that is to allow both sides of the board to gain and lose moisture at roughly the same rate.

Any cabinet maker will tell you that the only way to do that effectively is to finish both sides of the boards.

It really is simple, but most flooring companies get it wrong.  Those grooves you see on the back of their boards are supposed to prevent cupping by relieving stress.  They just don't work very well because they don't address the real problem. They try to compensate for it knowing the wood is going to warp because it is only finished on the top side.

More people have related this problem about their wood floors than any other.

You will never see grooves on the back of our boards!  Instead, we apply a commercial sealer to regulate the moisture gain and loss to about the same rate as the top of the planks.

It costs more for us to do it our way, but it works far better at keeping your floor flat and in place.

Attach them Through the Surface

Here is the next biggest problem we hear about.  Floors with boards wider than 5 inches that have lifted out of place.

Any boards over 5 inches wide must be attached through the face of the board to keep it firmly in place. Toe nailing on the edge of an 8 inch board is not enough to ensure a solid fix to the sub floor.

We use 18th Century Rosehead Clincher nails in patterns of 2 or 3 across the board to attach our planks:

   In addition, we apply two or three thick lines of subfloor adhesive down the length of the board to firmly bond it to the sub floor. This removes any "springiness" from sub floor imperfection yet allows the board to expand and contract.

This is a far superior method to attach wide planks and, except for the glue, is exactly how they did it 200 years ago.

Plan for the Inevitable Gaps Between Boards

Gaps will appear in any floor with boards over 5 inches wide and even in most floors with boards under 5 inches.  Unless you plan for them the results aren't pleasing.

The difference is how you design for them and prepare for them.

Don't believe anyone who says their real wood planks won't shrink!

How We Design for Gaps

A plank floor should look like matching individual boards laid down in a pleasing pattern, not a sea of wood like a gym floor.  If your eye sees individual planks, the gaps between boards will almost become invisible!

How do we do this?  We hand sculpt the edges and ends of every board with English spoke shaves. This enhances the appearance of individual planks, ensures no edges "stick up", and provides a shadow line between planks so gaps are not noticeably different as the wood expands and contracts with the seasons.

In addition, we stain (or paint) the edges and ends of every plank..  So gaps aren't white but instead match the color of the floor surface. This is something no one else bothers to do yet is the source of many complaints about wide plank floors.

Our experience shows with our methods gaps as large as 1/8"  aren't even noticed as people admire the overall  beauty of the floor.

copyright 2005 The Line Lexington Group, Inc. All rights reserved.