Quartersawn and Rift Sawn White Oak Hardwood Flooring

I purchased the white oak quartersawn and rift flooring for my dining room. Bottom line is it work out spectucularly. I could not be happier with the final result.

Here are the details if you are interested:

I purchased 250 sq ft of the 5 1/4 inch quartersawn and rift white oak flooring with no bevel to the edges. Peter was great and able to arrange for delivery in very short order and I had the product in my house in less than 8 days from the time of order. He even refunded me part of the delivery cost when he found a cheaper shipper.

I let the product sit in my living room for a week all the time I could not wait to get started. I knew I had to wait and I am glad that I did. I also broke open all of the bundles on arrival to make sure that all of the boards could breathe and to get a look at the boards. True to description, some boards were pure quartersawn with beautiful rays and flaks and some where just nice straight grained boards. Everyone was perfect with no broken tongues and no cracked grooves. Each bundle had a nice mix of shorter and longer boards with only minor color variation.

Installation was extremely easy for several reasons. First, the boards are all straight and flat, no bowing or cupping. Second, the boards are all T&G on all four sides, a nice feature, particularly if you need to do threasholds or other patterns. Third, the quality of the milling is so good that each board fits nicely into the next one without having to force anything. If you do not have an air nailer for floors, rent or buy one, it makes the job much easier.

A couple of notes on sanding and finishing. First, the milling was so good that the variation in height was less than 1/32 so instead of starting my sanding with a 24 or 36 grit, I started at an 80 grit and finished with 100 grit. Sanding took less than 2 hours, including hand sanding in the corners. I finished the floors with three coats of the Minwax Pro-grade semi-closs poly, sanding very lightly with 240 between coats. They look amazing.

I am a fairly handy homeowner, not a professional flooring installer. This job was easy in great part due to the quality of the product that I was installing. I strongly recommend the flooring from Country Mouldings and it was a pleasure working with Peter. I have 4 bedrooms, a living room, and library to finish over the next year. I am certain that I will be ordering more.

Note: I will be sending Peter pictures. Ask to see them.