Prewar apartment houses
Original oak strip, parquet and herringbone, often over sleepers on a concrete slab. These floors have usually been sanded before, so how much wood is left decides whether you are refinishing or recoating.
Manhattan hardwood floor specialists
Hardwood floor specialists in Manhattan
We refinish, install and repair wood floors across Manhattan. Prewar co-ops, postwar condos, lofts and walk-ups each have their own rules about how the work can happen, and we plan the job around them rather than around them being ignored.
Tell us about your floor
A name, a number and a line about the room is enough to start.
What people ask us first
The questions that decide a Manhattan floor job, answered before you call.
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01
Does my building need to approve this?
Usually yes. Refinishing is normally cosmetic work that needs no city permit, but most co-ops still want notice and a short alteration agreement before anything starts. Every building writes its own, so there is no single form that clears them all.
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02
What insurance will they ask for?
A certificate of insurance that names both the co-op corporation and the managing agent. Buildings commonly ask for one million per occurrence and two million aggregate, plus workers compensation and disability.
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03
What hours can the work happen?
New York City allows construction on weekdays from 7am to 6pm, and anything outside that needs an after hours authorisation. Plenty of buildings set a tighter window than the city does, so yours is the one that counts.
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04
Can my floor take another sand?
That is the first thing we look at in a prewar apartment. A floor that has been sanded several times over a century has a limit, and when it is close we say so and recoat instead of taking more wood off.
What we do
Six kinds of floor work. If you are not sure which one you need, start with the one closest to your problem and we will tell you.
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Hardwood floor refinishing
Sanding back to bare wood, then staining and finishing. This is what brings a tired prewar floor back, and it is usually the cheapest way to get a floor you are happy with.
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Buff and recoat
A new coat of finish without sanding to bare wood. One day instead of several, and the answer when the finish is worn but the wood underneath is sound.
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Hardwood floor installation
New floors in solid or engineered wood. Most of what decides how a floor turns out happens before the first board goes down, in the subfloor underneath it.
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Wood floor repair
Water damage, loose and squeaking boards, gaps that open every winter, and board matching in old parquet and herringbone.
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Laminate flooring installation
A hard wearing floating floor that goes down fast. The subfloor under it and the underlayment your building specifies decide whether it works.
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Vinyl plank flooring installation
The one floor here that is genuinely waterproof, so it goes in the kitchens, bathrooms and slab level rooms where wood should not.
Not sure which of those is your job? That is the most common reason people call.
Call (929) 207-0334How we work in Manhattan buildings
A Manhattan floor job is decided by the building as much as by the floor. There is no driveway to stage from and no yard to cut in. Material comes up a service entrance or a freight elevator in a slot somebody booked, debris goes back down the same way, and the day the work can start is the day the building says it can.
We plan that part with you before anything is ordered. That means knowing which elevator we can use and when, what your managing agent needs from us on paper, and how much of the apartment has to stay usable while the work runs.
We also tell you when the smaller job is the right one. A floor whose finish is worn but whose wood is sound does not need sanding, and a floor with one bad patch does not need replacing. Saying so costs us a bigger invoice and saves you a floor you cannot get back.
What changes with the building
Three patterns cover most of Manhattan, and each one changes the work in a different place.
Postwar co-ops and condos
Thinner floor assemblies and much more sensitivity to sound moving between apartments. These are the buildings with the strictest underlayment specifications, and the spec is written into what you are allowed to install.
Walk-ups and lofts
In a walk-up every machine, every bundle of flooring and every bag of debris goes up and down the stairs, which changes the schedule and the labour. In a loft it is wide plank over long spans and a freight elevator with booked slots.
Tell us the floor and the building, and we can usually place the job on the first call.
Call (929) 207-0334Where we work
We work across Manhattan. That includes Gramercy and Kips Bay, where we are based, along with Murray Hill, the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, Chelsea, Greenwich Village and the West Village, Tribeca and SoHo, Midtown East and Turtle Bay, the Financial District and Battery Park City, Harlem and Morningside Heights, and the East Village and Lower East Side. Washington Heights, Inwood and Roosevelt Island are all inside the area we cover.
The neighbourhood matters less than the building. An Upper East Side prewar co-op and a prewar co-op on the Upper West Side are the same job, and a loft in Tribeca and a walk-up in the East Village are not.
Flooring Masters across New York
The same wood floor work in every borough, and a page for each one.
The Bronx
Apartment blocks, two and three family houses, and parquet floors that often have more life in them than people expect.
Brooklyn
Brownstones and row houses with original boards, alongside new build condos with engineered floors over concrete.
Queens
Attached and semi detached houses, garden apartments and co-ops, each with its own access and scheduling reality.
Staten Island
Mostly detached houses, which usually means easier access, fewer building rules and more floor area at once.
Across New York City
What a floor job costs, what your building asks for before it starts, and the whole picture in one place.
Ready when you are
Tell us what the floor is doing and what building it is in. If you already know what your managing agent needs, bring that too.