How To Care For Hardwood Floors

How To: Care For Hardwood Floors

We do a lot of hardwood floor refinishing at Austin Home Restorations and I often get asked by clients how they should care for their newly refinished wood floors. There is a specific timeline of how to treat and care for a wood floor after it was just refinished. In this post I’ll outline what [...] Read on →

How To Repair Hardwood Floors

How To: Repair Hardwood Floors

Hardwood floors are synonymous with old homes. It’s almost impossible to find an old home without them. And yet they are disappearing because people don’t realize how resilient and long-lasting they are. Unknowing homeowners and contractors rip out or cover up these amazing floors when they could be saved and used for another 100+ years! [...] Read on →

Marmoleum Linoleum flooring

Linoleum vs. Vinyl Flooring (What’s the difference?)

Linoleum and vinyl. Vinyl and linoleum. If you’re like most people you might think they are the same thing. But in reality they could not be more different. They two very different products from two very different times. Each one has its advantages but only one of them rightfully belongs in a historic home. Do [...] Read on →

Before repairs

5 Worst Mistakes of Historic Homeowners (Part 2 Floors)

Living here in the Sunshine State it seems that folks have an unusual penchant for $0.69 sq. ft. 20″ tiles. The most popular colors are blah, boring, and blech. People love to toss these tiles down over red oak, irreplaceable heart pine, and any number of historic floors. And these tile are spreading like a [...] Read on →

Hand hewn plank floor similar to the first forms of wood flooring.

A History of Wood Floors

History Flooring, just like everything else in the home had humble beginnings. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, and that was typically slate or other local stones. Royalty were the first to enjoy the comforts of wood floors. These first wood floors were hand-scraped and literally “sanded.” The workers would lay down rough [...] Read on →