Hardwood flooring in Wentzville, MO

Wentzville houses are built for open sightlines. The great room runs into the kitchen, the kitchen runs into the breakfast area, and one continuous floor is what makes all of that read as a single space instead of three. Hardwood does that better than anything else. It also stands out in a market where buyers tour four houses in a weekend on nearly the same builder plans, and real wood on the main level registers in the first ten seconds.

The other half of the story sits in Old Town. Houses off Pearce Boulevard and Linn Avenue were built when oak strip was simply what went down, and many of those floors are still there under carpet and pad from the 1980s. Pulling that carpet is one of the better days on this job. Underneath we usually find 2 1/4 inch red oak that has never been sanded past its original finish, which means there is plenty of wood left to work with.

New Wentzville construction usually means 3/4 inch OSB over long-span engineered floor trusses. That system is strong, but it moves and it squeaks. Before a plank goes down we walk the whole floor, screw off the loose spots, flatten anything outside tolerance and meter the OSB. On slab, the concrete gets tested first, because a slab poured on a fast build schedule can still be giving up moisture more than a year later.

Missouri does not make life easy on wood. Summer dew points sit in the 70s and January indoor air can drop below 25 percent relative humidity, so wood answers by swelling and shrinking. We acclimate material inside the house rather than the garage, set expansion gaps at every wall and vertical surface, and tell you plainly to run a humidifier through winter. Floors that get that treatment stay tight. Floors that do not tend to open gaps by February.

It starts with a free in-home measure. Erik walks the house, checks the subfloor and takes moisture readings, measures every room and talks through species, plank width and finish with samples in hand. The quote comes in writing with the scope spelled out. Material is ordered and delivered early so it can acclimate. Then we set a start date and work around your household, including the second and third shift schedules that are common out here.

On install days the crew protects doorways and the path in, tears out the old floor, preps the substrate and lays the wood. A refinishing job runs sand, then stain samples approved with you standing on the floor looking at them, then coats with dry time between. Progress photos go out along the way so you know where things stand while you are at work. At the end we walk the floor with you and close out anything on the list.