Hardwood Flooring in Larkspur, CA

Larkspur splits cleanly into two kinds of flooring jobs. The older homes along and around Magnolia Avenue usually have original wood under them, often narrow-plank oak or fir, and most of it still carries enough thickness for another refinish or two. Those are restoration jobs more than replacement jobs, and they tend to come out looking remarkable for what they cost.

Out toward Larkspur Landing the housing is newer and more of it sits on slab, so the conversation shifts to engineered hardwood and what wear layer makes sense for how long you plan to stay in the house. Downtown Larkspur also has a fair number of homes close enough to Corte Madera Creek that we check moisture in the subfloor more carefully than the age of the house alone would suggest. Two different houses, two different answers. We will tell you which one you have got.

Call today for a free estimate on installation, refinishing, or repair in Larkspur.

Telling How Much Floor You Have Left

An original floor on Magnolia Avenue may have been sanded once, or three times, and the difference decides what we can do with it. Every refinish takes wood off. What matters is how much is left above the tongue, the interlocking edge that holds the boards together. Go past that and the sander cuts into the joint, and at that point the floor is finished as a floor. We do not guess at it. There is usually somewhere to get a look at the edge of a board, at a vent, a threshold, or a spot where the floor meets something else, and that tells us what we are working with. If there is enough left, refinishing an original narrow-plank floor is one of the best-value jobs in this trade. If there is not, we say so rather than taking one more pass and handing you a problem. Newer construction over in Corte Madera rarely raises the question at all.

Matching New Wood Into an Old Larkspur Floor

Repairs into an old floor are a matching problem more than a carpentry problem. Board widths from the twenties and thirties often are not made anymore, so material either gets milled to match or sourced from reclaimed stock. Species matters too, since old-growth fir and old-growth oak have a tighter grain than anything cut today, and a modern board set next to them reads as new even under the same stain. Then there is color. Old wood has darkened for decades and new wood has not, so matching means aiming past the current color to where the new piece will end up. We do that work by sample rather than by eye on the first try. On a floor that is going to be sanded and refinished afterward the whole thing gets easier, because the final coat pulls everything together. On a spot repair into a floor we are not refinishing, it is slower and we price it that way.