Monday, October 31, 2011

Homeowners Warned to Inspect Floorboards After man Falls Through Bathroom Floor

Homeowners have been warned to inspect their floors and floorboards after a 25-year-old American man fell through a floor in his home. The man was believed to have been on the first floor of the property when he fell through rotten flooring, falling almost ten feet onto the ground below. The man was in the bathroom when his bathtub fell through unstable floorboards, taking him with it. Fortunately, the man only experienced minor injuries as a result of his fall.

The news may be of concern to homeowners with wooden bathroom, Wood Flooring Sanding who are concerned that the inevitable humidity in their bathroom, together with unavoidable splashes of water, will eventually warp their wooden flooring.

Homeowners concerned about the condition of their current bathroom flooring may wish to look into the new finishes for wooden flooring that aid wooden flooring in becoming a viable option for their bathrooms.

Homeowners are advised to choose resilient wood for their flooring and to opt for polyurethane finishes to form a watertight seal when finishing new flooring or refinishing wood floors that have been previously installed.Before laying a new wooden floor or performing any wood floor restoration, bathroom floorboards should be inspected for signs of water damage and any floorboards removed and replaced if necessary.

Once a new floor has been laid, homeowners should take precautions to ensure that their bathroom floor remains in prime condition. Spills should be mopped up immediately and leaks addressed quickly. A well-finished, well-laid and adequately cared for wooden floor can serve to protect the floorboards below, thus preventing their collapse.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Study Hardwood Flooring Options

Before you commit to purchasing Hardwood Floor Sanding, you should make sure that you have studied all of the available options first. Anyone who is thinking of installing hardwood floors in their home will inevitably be looking around to try and find the best deals that they possibly can, but it is important to take some things into account while doing so.

For one, the barrage of advertising relating to flooring is constant, in newspapers and tabloid inserts, not to mention a multitude of television spots, all claiming to have real deals when it comes to the best in wood floors. The thing to watch out for is whether or not they are actually real deals at all, or just an excuse to try and get you into the store.

The truth is that there are a number of very good flooring deals around most of the time, providing that you know where to look for them. Jobs are pretty thin on the ground and the economy is not too good, which tends to mean that many contractors are willing to do work for lower prices.

This might be bad news for the contractors but it is certainly good for consumers.On the downside you need to ensure that the deal you agree to comes with everything you expect. Therefore, it is important to ask a number of questions, e.g. Does your deal include the costs of all the materials involved, including glue, nails, staples etc? Does it include the finishing trim? Will a sub floor be required? How long is the flooring expected to last before any wood floor repairs are needed?

Rustic Engineered Floors Give Homes Character

With trends in interior design changing all the time, homeowners in the United Kingdom are trying to keep up with the latest crazes in decoration. Vintage and traditional styles are all the rage this season, with many consumers opting to go for the choice of installing rustic engineered flooring in their homes in order to create a genuinely one-of-a-kind look.

Rustic engineered floors give a home a great deal of character and always add a certain degree of style.Consumers love the flooring because it enables them to add their own touches of personality in a room, with each kind of rustic engineered flooring having a lively spirit that ably demonstrates a natural beauty with which few other forms of flooring can compete.

Rustic Engineered Floor Sanding come with many natural features that are ideal for generating a look of timelessness, including grains, knots and natural colour variations that also serve to ensure that no two rustic engineered floors are ever going to look the same as one another.

This means that every consumer will be able to choose one unique pattern that is perfect for their individual home.

Rustic engineered floors do not just give consumers a chic and natural style, however – they also have other benefits, including the fact that they are much easier to both install and to keep properly maintained with Floor Sanding and so on. Rustic engineered floors are also far less likely to shrink or expand because of the unique way in which it is constructed.


Monday, October 24, 2011

Caring for Different Wood Floor Finishes

If you have just completed wood floor refinishing in your home, and are delighted with the results, you need to take a moment to pause and think about the amount of effort, expense and time that went into the process and reflect that now is the time to begin contemplating what you can do in terms of caring for and maintaining your floors in order to ensure they remain in the best condition and to see that they will last even longer than their warranties guarantee.

The first important fact to consider is that different kinds of hardwood flooring also have various types of surface coating, and each kind requires a different set of cleaning and upkeep procedures. Using the wrong cleaning or upkeep methods to care for your floor can possibly do your floor more harm than good and maybe even void your warranty, so it is very important to make sure that you have done your research and that you have followed the guidelines given to you by your retailer or in the documentation that came with the product.

Secondly, all kinds of hardwood floors require a gatekeeper, which means the presence of a good rug or walk-off mat that is situated at any point where there is an entrance to the outside world. A high quality doormat can protect your floor by trapping the grit, debris and water that is frequently carried along by people’s shoes, and is an excellent first line of defence.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Keep Wooden Floors Clean and Shiny

It is important to keep Wooden Floors Sanding nice and clean, so the good news is that cleaning wood flooring is a lot easier to do than cleaning other kinds of flooring, such as carpets. Cleaning wood flooring all through the house is also a good way of making the home look both spacious and very beautiful. The methods of maintaining wooden floors do not differ between alternative types, although some kinds of wood flooring may need a little bit of extra care and attention, particularly when it comes to such activities as the removing of stains.

By far the fastest and the most effective way of cleaning wooden floors is with a damp mop. Prior to mopping the floor, all surface dust should have been removed, which can be done with either a lightweight vacuum cleaner or even just a soft broom. You can then just mop the floor, rinse and repeat.

It is crucial to remove the dirt and grit from Wood Flooring Sanding, as they are by far the biggest causes of scouring and scratching of the floor finish. If this is not done regularly and properly, it could cause the homeowner to have to eventually put up with the time, mess and expense of refinishing wood floors.

The great majority of wooden floors are finished with a surface finish known as polyurethane, which helps wood flooring to achieve that glossy and shiny look. It is like a plastic coating on the wood and is known to be very durable.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Colourful Accessories Help Brighten Up Wood Floors

The favoured interior design schemes for this season are bright and bold, with many people buying accessories such as new and colorful rugs with bright patterns in order to fit in with the current trend for a more vibrant style.

The general fashion at the moment is for wooden flooring products, including refinishing wood floor products, and Engineered Floor Sanding, which will stand the test of time as they have always done, but which are given a bright twist by accessorizing with bright and fun rugs.
Such rugs mean that any room in the house can be given a splash of colour by the homeowner without changing the decor so much that the brightness becomes in any way overpowering. Brightly coloured rugs are ideal accessories for wooden floors as they create a noticeable contrast between the stylish and sophisticated wood flooring and the more outlandish colours and patterns of the rugs.

The good news, of course, is that should the trend toward brighter colours go out of fashion before too long, the rugs can be simply replaced or removed altogether. This means that homeowners can make their houses mirror the peak of contemporary stylish design without having to pay a lot of money to alter the flooring to either achieve the look or to move from it when the time comes.

Rugs can also help to protect wooden floors from wear caused by excessive foot traffic, as well as from dirt, spills and scratches.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Waxing a Wooden Floor

The DIY craze has exploded over the course of the last few years, largely thanks to home improvement programmes on television. With the professionals making it all look terribly easy, more and more people have been embarking on such projects themselves. This is not always a good idea, but one project that can be carried out relatively easily is waxing wood floors.

Hardwood Floor Sanding that have not been adequately cared for can begin to look dull and worn after a number of years, and waxing is an excellent form of wood floor restoration.

Fortunately, there are some simple tips to make waxing a wood floor a fairly painless process.To wax a wood floor, you need to have the correct supplies, including liquid wood wax, linseed oil, some clean and soft rags, mineral spirits and some fine steel wool pieces. Ideally, the liquid wood wax should include beeswax and carnauba, and possibly even some silicone elements, which add shine to wooden floors.

To begin waxing wood floors, first you need to seal them and wait a day or two. One part of linseed oil and three parts of mineral spirits can be mixed together to make your own cleaning fluid which, using fine steel wool, you can use to clean the surface of the wood.

Make sure you have ventilation in the room whenever you use mineral spirits! After an hour, you can then use a clean, soft cloth to buff the first coat of wax. Use two separate cloths to wax and buff, and then repeat the process. Wait six hours and do it again one last time.


Friday, October 14, 2011

Designers Prefer Engineered Wood Flooring

More and more designers are beginning to choose to use engineered wood flooring in the homes they are hired to decorate, rather than traditional solid wood. The technology behind engineered wood has increased in leaps and bounds in recent years and as customers have started to realize the benefits, so too have sales of engineered wood flooring begun to skyrocket.

Many high profile interior designers have been less quick to catch on to the craze but the signs are that even this is now changing.
Many are now starting to believe that engineered wooden flooring is of a very high quality and may even, in some circumstances, be a more practical option than traditional solid wood floors.

For example, engineered flooring is resistant to contraction and expansion, which is caused in traditional wood floors as a consequence of fluctuations in the atmosphere and the temperature of the room that the floor is in. Floor Sanding Kingston As such homeowners who choose to install engineered wood flooring in their houses do not have as much to worry about when it comes to buckling and swelling in their floors, which can end up requiring expensive wood floor restoration.

This change in attitude toward engineered flooring is possibly a reflection of the troubled economic climate all across the world. Both homeowners and interior designers are having to start to become a little more frugal wherever they can. While there is no doubt that solid wood flooring is still the best investment, with more and more people choosing to redecorate rather than move house, the investment reason is becoming less common.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Brightening up Wood Flooring

While the news about the emerging trend toward brighter colours for interiors might be inspiring for those people who are looking for completely new flooring, some may simply be looking to refurbish their current wood floors. The good news, however, is that this may be easier to do than many might have been led to believe.
Consumers who chose to buy Wood Floor Sanding London as a form of investment are the most likely to resist new fashions such as the trend toward brighter interiors as they believe they need to remain faithful to the original style of the flooring.

The truth is, however, that with a bit of floor sanding and refinishing, including a change in shade courtesy of stock-coloured finishes that are available in the great majority of Do-It-Yourself stores, the style of anyone’s wood flooring can be brought right up-to-date without in any way harming it or damaging the original investment.This can be a tremendous way of maintaining the investment as well as the inherent quality and beauty of wood flooring, while at the same time updating your home in order to give it a fresh new look.

Those who would prefer not to change the look of their flooring quite so dramatically can still find other alternatives, such as using a slightly brighter colour scheme for their home in general without actually altering the floor.This could perhaps involve simply adding some brightly-coloured rugs or even just changing some furniture or the colours of the walls.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Reclaimed Wood and Refinishing Hardwood Floors

Hardwood floors are a beautiful natural product, with every plank filled with varying grain patterns. Their attractiveness and the ease with which they can be maintained have made them the most popular choice for home flooring in numerous countries throughout the world, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Realtor surveys have even demonstrated that houses with hardwood flooring sell a good deal faster than houses that feature predominantly carpeted floors, while many manufacturers of vacuum cleaners have even had to redesign their machines in order to take into account the popularity and growing predominance of wooden flooring.

Reclaimed wood is one style of wooden flooring that is becoming more and more popular. Cut decades ago, reclaimed wood is technically stable and has already endured cupping and twisting, with the unique patina often featuring such things as saw marks, nail holes and worming. Another part of the growing appeal of reclaimed wood for flooring is that it is about recycling, saving scrap wood from being dumped in landfills and giving it a new lease of life in the home. Homeowners also used to be intimidated by the price of reclaimed wood floors – but because of availability and advances in technology, prices have dropped considerably in recent years, making it a lot more accessible and affordable for the average buyer.

When it comes to refinishing floors, matte is also becoming more accepted, while the process of refinishing itself is a lot less inconvenient than it was a few years ago, with many companies now offering dustless floor sanding.

SOURCE: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/10/07/3195364/hot-in-hardwood-flooring-new-colors.html


Thursday, October 6, 2011

Mahogany Floors

For wooden flooring that adds an instant touch of class and has a smell all of its own, mahogany is the best choice around. Mahogany floors add immediate presence to a home and create an elegant and rich appearance.

Commonly found in the south of Mexico and through Central America to Argentina, mahogany was once widely available but has in recent years started to become a little more of a rarity, which only serves to make it even more of a wood flooring delicacy. Well known for its rich and deep reddish brown look, mahogany also has striping features and a complimenting even texture throughout the species. A bit of light is added to the species via the white sapwood, which shines throughout the heartwood of mahogany, making the lustre that mahogany exhibits so well and helps to make it so aesthetically pleasing.

There are a number of different kinds of mahogany that can be best suited to different purposes. The best kind of mahogany with which to create wooden floors is normally thought to be Santos mahogany, which is often used to create flooring for the simple reason that it is much harder and more durable than some other kinds of mahogany, meaning it is much better suited to dealing with the wear and tear of heavy foot traffic and sanding floorboards. Mahogany also has a natural fragrance, which provides any home with a mahogany wood floor with a pleasant and welcoming scent.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Cleaning up Dog Urine on Wooden Floors

It’s an embarrassingly common problem, yet one you rarely hear a solution to. How do you clean up dog urine from a wooden floor sanding in order to ensure no damage is done to the flooring that will end up needing you to invest in wood floor repairs?

Items you will need to clean up dog urine from wood floors successfully include paper towels, a paintbrush, baking soda, wood floor stain touch-up, a vacuum cleaner, sandpaper, a bucket, white vinegar, cleaning cloths, plastic wrap and hydrogen peroxide.

Once the ‘accident’ has happened, place paper towels over the stain, continuing to replace them with fresh towels as the previous ones continue to soak up the dog urine. Next sprinkle baking soda over the stain, allowing it to sit overnight so that it can completely absorb both the urine itself and the smell. In the morning, use a vacuum cleaner to remove the baking soda, and then wash the area of the stain with a wood floor cleaner.

For older urine stains on the wood floor, use straight hydrogen peroxide to saturate the stain, then soak a cloth with the same substance and lay it over the stain. A plastic wrap should then be used to create a poultice by laying it over the cloth and peroxide, and this should be left to sit overnight.

In the morning, remove the materials from the site of the stain and use a solution comprising one part vinegar and one part water to dampen a clean cloth and wipe the area, then dry it. If necessary, sand and stain the floor.

SOURCE:http://www.dailypuppy.com/articles/how-to-clean-dog-urine-stains-on-wood-floors/0e51ac48-6f62-eaac-645f-a9b129b67b78

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