Understanding Solid Wood Floors

Before you shop and buy real wood floors, you should understand them. Before you install them, understanding solid wood floors is key. Please do not take offense to the insinuation you should understand solid wood floors. In fact, we you are referring to our specialty, pine the lack of knowledge among installers is shocking. Solid wood flooring site finish and installation is an art, a lost one for that matter. Not long-ago artisans and craftsmen took pride in sanding, finishing and repeating! Today time is money and real wood takes time.

Buying solid wood usually means a site finish

Site finished pine flooring needs preparation. Preparing for the wood is an important step often overlooked, the preconditioning portion of the finish. When you have unfinished solid wood floors with character, i.e. knots, different grain patterns and variance in density you need a product that prevents splotchy finishes. It is not expensive, but vital. Min-wax, for example has an excellent product.

Sanding unfinished solid wood floors

“Do you have to sand prior to finish?” The short answer is no, but we always add, only if you want your floors to look their best. Sanding your unfinished floor prior to preconditioning allows for deeper penetration and better protection not to mention it raises the grain allowing the colors to pop free. Commonly known as popping the grain and accomplished by simply running a wet rag down the board as you pull them out of the pallet crate.

Mill to order makes install easy

Milled to order is not a marketing term for us, we do not mill inventory to sit on shelves and one day match with another inventory. By milling your floors all together, on the same day from the same “trees” provides a consistent floor which goes together as it should. SYP Direct mills Alabama Longleaf Pine lumber into unfinished Knotty and Heart Pine flooring. We mill to order, for homeowners and builders, furthermore with no minimum order. We can customize your order in ways that save you time and money. Grades, widths, length (s) are just three of the ways our mill to order model benefits our customers. There is no other SYP Direct, we say yes to solid wood, every single time.

Stop leasing temporary floor covers

Leased flooring all has the same residual value, it cost you and the environment money, every single time. Our philosophy, One House, One Floor has at its core one absolute; there is never a reason to buy engineered floors unless you are a prison, state university or hospital. Real is better than fake, real wood is green and yes, the answer is yes you can glue down solid wood.  Southern Yellow Pine Direct welcomes all of you homeowners told solid wood is too expensive or cannot be glued down. Welcome to a place where logic still exist, we tell the truth. For example, LVT is not waterproof, warranties are worthless, you can glue down solid wood and real wood is certainly more durable than single use leased covers.

Advertising by box stores

Today a Google search for the best solid wood pine floors sends you Clover Lea pine wood floors, LL Flooring formerly lumber liquidators.  These are the exact opposite of quality for a number of reasons.  Buyers many times have no clue the difference in quality, it is substantial to say the least.

Angie’s List wrong on flooring

Buying real wood flooring online can lead you to Angie’s list for an installation professional. Remember, Angie get her money, i.e. the customers are contractors or brands who advertise. Who will tell you the truth about pine and real wood floors in general? SYP Direct presents the A List; a resource without agenda. The amount of misinformation passed off as a “resource” designed to help you find your floor, by our totals, about 95% of it.

Free Markets are good when fair

We are not anti-free markets, not at all. However, under a cloud of propaganda we believe, with zero doubt that homeowners are getting ripped off. A Google search, finding real wood floors, provides Angie’s List as a top result. Not to strange, since they do have hardwood flooring companies on their site (s). However,  further inspection, Angie’s seems to be repeating the same nonsense as the box stores and your local installer trying to sell you “their” floors.  

Buying Real Wood Flooring

Buying real wood flooring online can be aggravating, almost as bad as going into a box store. So how do you find and buy real pine floors online? The age and species are a perfect place to start. Determining the age of pine should determine the price of flooring, not lumber but the ‘stuff we walk on’. Age creates stability, stability and character not to mentions the colors we all love. Patina is a word directly associated with age and light exposure, with older wood the patina is deep and rich; i.e more expensive.