Your Color & Design Expert in Johns Creek

Your Color & Design Expert in Johns Creek: Hardwood Flooring: Site Finished or Pre-Finished?...

2012-01-20T18:15:00.000-05:00

Your Color & Design Expert in Johns Creek: Hardwood Flooring: Site Finished or Pre-Finished?...: There is no question that adding hardwood flooring to your home not only adds value, but also a warm and inviting feel. The two main types o...

Hardwood Flooring: Site Finished or Pre-Finished?

2012-01-15T14:48:00.002-05:00

There is no question that adding hardwood flooring to your home not only adds value, but also a warm and inviting feel. The two main types of hardwood flooring available are: installed and finished on site, or pre-finished hardwood flooring.

Site finished means that the actual hardwood flooring pieces/planks are nailed or glued (depending upon the sub floor), then the surface is sanded, stained, sanded again, wood filler applied, sanded again, with three coats of polyurethane, with a light sanding in between coats. This can result in a beautiful finish, and is not so much of an issue when done in new construction when there are no inhabitants in the house.

However, if you have this type of floor and you need to get it refinished or change the color and you are living in the house, it can be quite an ordeal. No matter how much a company boasts of a dustless system, there is still dust from the sanding.

I have installed and had both types of hardwood in my homes and the homes of many clients over the years. The advancements in the manufacturing processes of pre-finished flooring, has made it a superior choice for many reasons:

1) Very limited dirt/dust in the air from the installation. If you have persons with allergies and asthma in the home, hardwoods are a great option to alleviate dirt and fibers held in carpet. The installation of pre-finished hardwoods is a better option than site finished due to the elimination of most dust, and the amount of VOCs and fumes given off using oil-based stains and polys associated with site finished.

2) The factory finished aluminum oxide coatings on pre-finished hardwoods are equal to 8+ coats of traditional polyurethanes used when site finished. Dust, dirt and other contaminates usually dry into the finish and stay there during the sanding and application of polyurethanes in the site finishing. These factory finishes have a much longer warranty on the finish, it can be up to 25 years!

3) The installation process for pre-finished is minimal usually one to two days, and you can move furniture back in immediately. Whereas site finished requires a week or more, with multiple steps. You often times have to be out of the home for several days, during the staining process, and off the floor for several more while it cures. And all of the furniture has to be moved out you can't move it from room to room.

4) When adding a room of hardwood, it is often easier with the pre-finished material to match, and the entire floor does not have to be sanded and re-stained. Custom stain colors with site finished may not match again when adding or refinishing.

5) With engineered pre-finished flooring, expansion and contraction of wood is virtually non-existent. With solid, unfinished flooring, if not acclimated long enough to the home's environment beforehand, there can be movement expansion after installation.

With the changes in our lifestyles over the last 10 years, including our time constraints, desire to minimize stress and concern over chemicals in our environment, pre-finished hardwood is one way to make our lives easier during the remodeling process.

Merchant Success Story: Mrs. G’s Appliance and TV – The Value You Want; The Service You Deserve. Independent We Stand | Independent We Stand

2012-01-14T07:43:00.000-05:00

Merchant Success Story: Mrs. G’s Appliance and TV – The Value You Want; The Service You Deserve. Independent We Stand | Independent We Stand

Your Color & Design Expert in Johns Creek:

2012-01-02T08:14:00.000-05:00

Your Color & Design Expert in Johns Creek:

2012-01-02T07:49:00.000-05:00

Tangerine Tango on Four Walls??? Really? , Let's Be Reasonable

2012-01-01T17:33:00.001-05:00

This Works!

First of all Happy New Year!

For the past several weeks I have seen all of the articles, tweets, blogs, and many posts about Pantone's Color of the Year Tangerine Tango. It's a bright and fun color for sure, kind of reminds me of a big bowl of orange skittles. Not necessarily a great look for a main room of your house. It would look very pretty coupled with last years "Color of the Year Honeysuckle", which as we all remember was a very vibrant fuchsia, or a hot pink! (I still am confused about that one, to me the name implied a gold color). Anyway I sold one quart of Honeysuckle to a design firm that wanted to show the color of the year. It was a temporary thing and very hard to make "work" as paint color.

But as I have to remind clients everyday, just because it is the "Color of the Year", does not necessarily mean it can translate to a painted wall color. Our store carries 3 lines of paint, Benjamin Moore, Pratt & Lambert, and Ralph Lauren, all great companies with an abundance of awesome colors in each palette. They all contain colors that could be matched to a "Tangerine Tango" type of color, but it is my job to steer my clients to a color choice that will not scream from down the hall.

This is a bit much

For the most part, Pantone makes its very vibrant choice every year to make a splash for the designers to specify in fabrics, accessories, wallpapers, and with couture. Using orange as an accent in this way can give you that excitement in a space. As a color consultant and owner/operator of an independent paint retailer I choose to put together a workable plan for my clients, who need my expertise with paint. What looks bright and fun on a paint chip, may be a bit overwhelming for an entire room. Even when I did a Miami Hurricane themed room for the son of a client, I mixed the orange with some green and white to diffuse it.

So I feel compelled to caution those consumers getting ready to redecorate, a little orange goes a long way!

The "Green Phenomenon" in Paint Products Gain More Momentum in 2012

2011-12-21T10:36:00.000-05:00

The obsession with being "Green" with all aspects of building products has been a positive and environmentally conscious thing to strive for. In regards to interior/exterior paint and coatings it has become big business. Being in the paint industry for over 15 years, I have seen it evolve to become more and more environmentally conscious over time. Personally, I always considered the smell of a freshly painted room as a clean smell. The fact that so many individuals are bothered by the smell of paint is a legitimate concern.

The main issue talked about with paints and coatings has been with the amount of VOC's in the paint which stands for Volatile Organic Compounds. Simply put, the VOC's are the gases emitted after paint is applied and as it dries. People with asthma or allergies can be more bothered by the VOC's emitted and the fumes that drying paint can have. Most of the paint companies have developed low-VOC and zero-VOC products to become more "green friendly" to the environment and consumers. A larger group of consumers are adversely affected by paint fumes resulting in sore throats, watery eyes, and trouble breathing. These symptoms can become even more serious when exposed to women who are pregnant, infants, small children, and the elderly, who may have weaker immune systems.

Many of the major paint companies that have continually made improvements to interior and exterior paint products have done so by using solely water-borne tints as well as the base paint. Do your research when choosing the best product for your home and make sure that the paint remains a zero-VOC product even after the tint is put in, because that ingredient has been the component that will encourage the VOC's to go up. Choose a water-based polyurethane when possible, traditionally these products did not preform as well, but the processes have improved as this movement will continue to get stronger. Good flooring re-finishers now offer both water-based and oil-based products.

Look for LEED certification, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design as the standard in building products to become even more popular in 2012, as the building and remodeling industry continues to improve.