hardwood floor
The 1930s Spanish homes in our neighborhood used to have gorgeous hardwood floors. Unfortunately, decades ago, many of them were covered up with carpeting.
A couple of weeks ago, with the new year, I finally decided to remodel a spare bedroom and turn it into a TV room. I wondered what was under that tired old carpet and I discovered something even worse, ugly linoleum tiles glued on top of the original wood. I consulted some floor experts and was given little hope of finding anything salvageable underneath, we would have to rip it all up and install a new wood floor; but then a dear friend recommended Danny, a wonderful craftsman who lives in our neighborhood. He was confident that it could be done, so one rainy morning he showed up with 4 of his long-time workers, and in 48 hours the old wood was uncovered, stripped, sanded and stained. It feels fantastic to have the floor back to the way it was intended by those builders way back in 1931.
You may want to try doing something like this in your own house and you could discover some gems, such as these lovely corner inlays.
Danny’s number is 323-937 3563, and the name of his 25-year-old company is AMA Hardwood Floors.
Please let us know your experience with other old-fashioned craftspeople in our neighborhood: carpenters, electricians, handy-men, masons, painters, plumbers, etc.
Text and photos by Elisa Leonelli
We had a similar experience. We removed carpet from a back room, only to find the original linoleum tiles. We called upon Walter’s Woodfloors (corner of Bagley and Venice). They removed the black tar gunk that held the linoleum tiles in place, sanded the floors, restained to match the rest of the wood floors in the home and viola — they are beautiful. I would definitely recommend Walter’s for anyone’s wood floor repair and/or refinishing.
Another referral for you. We have taken out some walls and floor furnace in our home which then left spaces in the floor where there was no wood at all. We wanted it to blend in so it wouldn’t be so obvious that something was missing. We hired Sanchez Hardwood Floor to “toe-in” the floor. His English is not great but his son’s is. Luckily, we had kept some of our original flooring from other areas as locating the old flooring can prove difficult to find. They did an amazing job! You can barely tell where the old ends and the new begins.
The numbers I have for Sanchez are (213) 327-4133 or (213) 748-1855.