Solid Hardwood Flooring in Murfreesboro, TN

If you want a floor that is wood all the way through, solid hardwood is the one we fit for you. We handle the whole job in Murfreesboro, from checking the floor under your feet to the last coat of finish.

Is solid wood a good fit for your rooms?

There are no glued layers in the solid boards we put down. Every board we fit is one piece of wood, so when the finish wears we can sand it back to fresh wood. That is a job we cover on our hardwood floor refinishing page.

The Wood Handbook from the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory says most flooring is made from hardwoods like oak and maple. It also says tongue and groove hardwood flooring is commonly supplied. In plain terms, one edge of each board has a lip, the tongue, that fits into a slot, the groove, on the board beside it.

A different Forest Products Laboratory study found that engineered wood flooring keeps its size better than solid strip flooring. It says that is because engineered boards are built from thin layers glued across each other. So if a room worries you, we can show you engineered hardwood flooring as well and help you pick per room.

Board sizes, in inches

Under the rules of the National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association, the Wood Handbook says tongue and groove boards come in standard thicknesses of 3/4, 1/2 and 3/8 inch. For the face you see, it lists widths of 1-1/2, 2, 2-1/4 and 3-1/4 inches.

We help you choose a width that suits the size of the room and the look you want.

Choosing a look

The look of a solid floor comes down to three things we go through with you: the kind of wood, the grade and the way the log was sawn.

For the kind of wood, oak is split into red oak and white oak in the handbook. We fit both, along with maple flooring and hickory flooring. You can read more on our red oak flooring and white oak flooring pages.

A grade is a label for how the top of a board looks. The handbook gives oak four main grades, from Clear to Select to No. 1 Common and No. 2 Common. We lay out sample boards from each grade you like, so you can see the knots and color shifts in your own rooms before you decide.

Wood, water and the air in your house

The Forest Products Laboratory says wood soaks up moisture from the air around it. It says the water left in the wood tends to settle to match how damp the air is. If that moisture is kept within sensible limits, the lab says big problems from boards changing size can usually be avoided.

The handbook warns that wood floors can crack if the boards take on moisture before or after they go down, then shrink once the house is heated. So we don't take boards straight off the truck and nail them down.

The days before the first nail

The handbook says to put wood down at the moisture level it will have in daily use. Doing that, it says, keeps seasonal changes small and helps stop problems like a floor buckling.

Its list of ways to cut down on cracks includes checking random boards with a moisture meter, a handheld tool that reads how much water is in the wood, when they arrive and again before they go down. It also says to break open the bundles so every side of each board meets the air inside the house.

We follow both steps. The open bundles wait in the rooms they will cover until our readings tell us they are ready. When we fit them, we leave a small space at each wall, tucked under the trim, so the floor can grow and shrink a little through the year.

Building your quote

We give you a price in writing after we measure your rooms. We won't guess at a number over the phone.

We base our price on the square footage, the number of doorways and corners we cut around, and the wood, grade and sawing you choose. We also add in pulling up an old floor, fixing the floor beneath, and sanding and finishing on site if your boards come raw.

On the written quote we spell out:

• The wood, grade, sawing, board width and thickness we will fit.
• When we take moisture readings, and how long we let the boards rest in the house.
• What we do if the floor beneath needs leveling, and what we charge for it.
• The stain and finish we use, by brand name, and how many coats we put on.
• Whether we move the furniture and pull up and haul off the old floor.
• How we finish each doorway where the new floor meets tile, carpet or wood.

Questions about solid hardwood flooring in Murfreesboro

Ask us for a solid hardwood quote

Call us, or fill in the quote form with your ZIP code and the rooms you have in mind. We'll come out, measure, walk you through woods, grades and finishes, and send a written quote. Our home page lists every other floor job we take on in Murfreesboro.