Whether you’re dealing with 200-year-old Heart Pine or a brand spanking new, intricate, artistic design, wood flooring makes a lasting statement about your home. “Wood is a living thing, and it can continue to grow and change with you,” says Matt Ange, one of the owners of Loudoun Valley Floors. Matt and his partners have more than 30 years of experience installing and restoring some of the most iconic floors in the area in virtually every décor.
For the sake of contrast, and maybe to help establish the wide range of options from which homeowners can choose, we’ve selected two hardwood flooring projects that showcase how important it is to select an expert who stays current with the latest trends, new product releases not to mention updated and artisanal installation methods. They are SideBar restaurant at 24 South King St. in the heart of Leesburg, whose more than 200-year old, original Heart Pine flooring received a new lease on life; and a private home in Falls Church with an intricate, original, artistic design that completely transformed the home’s original walnut foyer.
We call SideBar a traditional refinishing job as it is housed in one of the original old-town Leesburg homes and boasts nearly complete, original wood floors. The punishing wear of commercial restaurant and libation traffic had taken its toll on this surface, so the refinishers had to remove several layers of grime and sealant to uncover the beautiful, underlying wood grain. Some of the ancient stain remained in the refinished product, but, as it accented the original wood grain in a darker hue, it actually added shading and character to the completed floor.
Perhaps the most critical part of the process was a three-day curing process for the commercial polyurethane top coat, to ensure the ongoing beauty and durability of this historic floor. The owner Nils Schnibbe was so pleased, he asked LVH to refinish his home floors!
To the East, LVF responded to a call from a longtime customer, Kim Kendall Interiors. Kim had a client in Falls Church who was adding intricate, black trim accents to her foyer, including a modern wrought iron chandelier. The challenge: how to infuse this black trim into a geometric flooring design that would pull together all these accents to create a striking, cohesive impression?
Kim puzzled over the design problem for months, exploring then discarding traditional diamond patterns. Then, on a trip to visit her son in Dallas, she saw the perfect design in, of all places, the closet door in the Dallas Hyatt where she stayed. “I sent the pattern to my faux painter who mathematically mapped the design to the floor space and that was it!” Still, she knew paint wasn’t the most lasting solution for the upgrade, so she asked LVH if they could tackle it with wood inlay and they enthusiastically agreed. “I was a little amazed but they did a fabulous job,” she said.
LVH’s experts first traced the pattern, then extracted the requisite strips of wood from the floor for the darker inlay, installed complementary walnut inserts. They then stained the floor with the prescribed, contrasting, multilayered colors. The result is both unique and striking, the perfect introduction to an eclectic and very personalized home.
Because two sets of stairs off the foyer were viewed as a tripping hazard, these two received resonant designs, these of a Greek key pattern that were painted by Kim’s faux painter. The whole design was finished off with a black, wrought iron stair railing to the upstairs, capped with red-oak, the same wood LVH installed for the kitchen flooring.
If you still need inspiration, LVH Consultant Elizabeth Adkins notes that wood floors are “fully back in trend. Warmer, more traditional, and natural colors like gunstock are on the rise and cool colors like grey are headed out of fashion.” You’d have to visit one of LVH’s area showrooms to get the full range of options, but Elizabeth is quick to point out that a simple restoration treatment to a sand refinishing can yield great results.
“Wood flooring not only adds value to your home but you are able to sand a refinish it as long as you have enough wear layer. That means you can update your look in the future,” she explains. An in-home estimate to evaluate whether your floor is a candidate for such treatment is the first place to start. But then, dedicated, in-house flooring designers and retail sales associates stay with home owners and their interior design process every step of the way – even moving your furniture and helping to contain the dust from refinishing – making sure “we can bring the vision for your home to life,” she said.
For more information, see: www.loudounvalleyfloors.com/products/hardwood.