Hardwood Floor Refinishing in Portland, CT: A Custom Ebony Look on 3-5-7 Pegged Oak Flooring
Some hardwood floors are interesting because of their age. Others stand out because of the way they were originally installed.
This hardwood floor refinishing project in Portland, Connecticut 06480 had both character and a very distinctive design.
The home had a beautiful 3-5-7 pegged oak floor, with varying board widths and traditional wood plugs that gave the flooring an old-world, custom appearance.
The homeowner wanted to completely change the color.
They were looking for a deep black, ebony-type appearance, but there was an important catch: they didn't want the floor to become so dark that all of the natural structure and character of the oak disappeared.
That meant an off-the-shelf stain wasn't necessarily going to give us exactly what we wanted.
So we custom mixed the stain.
The goal was simple to describe but much more difficult to accomplish:
Make it dark. Make it dramatic. But still let it look like wood.
A 3-5-7 Pegged Oak Floor With Plenty of Character
A 3-5-7 floor gets its distinctive appearance from the mixture of different board widths.
Add the traditional plugs or pegs and V-grooves between the boards, and you have a floor with far more visual detail than a conventional strip-oak installation.
That's exactly what we wanted to preserve.
Going very dark with oak can create a dramatic transformation, but if the color becomes too heavy, some of the grain, variation and craftsmanship that make the floor interesting can get lost.
We wanted the opposite.
The customer wanted that black ebony direction, while still being able to see the individual boards, the grain and the construction of the floor.
By custom mixing the stain, we were able to work toward the darkness the homeowner wanted without simply covering up everything underneath it.
The V-Grooves Were the Real Challenge
Sanding the main surface of the floor was only part of this Portland project.
The V-grooves between the boards still contained the old finish.
A sanding machine can't simply reach down into every recessed groove and clean it out properly.
That meant doing it the old-fashioned way.
We had to hand scrape the V-grooves to remove the old finish.
It was detailed, time-consuming work, but it mattered.
Leaving the old finish inside those grooves could interfere with the new color and leave the completed floor looking inconsistent. With a dark custom stain, those details become even more noticeable.
So before we could create the new look, we had to properly prepare not only the surface of the boards but the details between them.
This is one of those projects where the finished photographs may make the transformation look easy.
The hard part is everything that has to happen before the stain ever goes on.
Creating the Custom Ebony-Type Color
Once the sanding and hand scraping were complete, we could concentrate on color.
The homeowner wasn't simply asking for the darkest floor possible.
They wanted something black and ebony-inspired, but they still wanted to recognize the oak underneath it.
That's an important distinction.
We custom mixed the stain until we had a direction that gave the floor the dark, dramatic appearance the customer wanted while allowing the grain and board structure to remain part of the finished look.
The wide-board pattern, pegs and V-grooves were still there.
They weren't hidden.
In fact, the dramatic new color helped make the construction of the floor even more interesting.
Dark didn't have to mean flat.
Hardwood Flooring in Portland, Connecticut 06480
Portland is a fitting location for a project built around traditional materials and craftsmanship.
Located along the Connecticut River directly across from Middletown, Portland has a long history tied to stonework, shipbuilding and skilled trades.
The town is especially famous for its historic Portland brownstone quarries. Portland brownstone was shipped throughout the country and beyond and used in buildings from New York and Boston to San Francisco. At the height of the industry in the 1850s, Portland's quarry operations employed more than 1,500 people.
Today, the quarries remain one of Portland's most recognizable historic features.
Another landmark is the Arrigoni Bridge, which crosses the Connecticut River between Portland and Middletown. The current steel-arch bridge opened in 1938 and remains one of the defining sights of the area.
Portland also includes Riverfront Park, historic Main Street, the Gildersleeve area, the historic Air Line Trail and numerous marinas along the Connecticut River. The town's riverfront continues to reflect the connection to the river that shaped Portland's early quarrying and shipbuilding industries.
We work throughout Portland 06480 and surrounding communities including Middletown, Cromwell, East Hampton, Glastonbury, Marlborough and Middlefield.
Four Generations of Hardwood Flooring Experience
At Patrick Daigle Hardwood Flooring, Inc., hardwood flooring is our specialty.
Our family's hardwood flooring tradition dates to 1927, and our Connecticut business began around 1972. Today, we're the fourth generation carrying on that craftsmanship.
We're proud members of the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) and proud to be ranked #1 in Hartford County and #1 in Connecticut by BusinessRate.
We combine generations of hands-on hardwood flooring experience with modern dust-containment sanding equipment, professional staining techniques and today's high-quality finishing systems.
But projects like this Portland floor also require something that isn't found in a product container.
Patience.
The V-grooves had to be hand scraped.
The old finish had to be removed from the details.
The stain color had to be custom mixed.
And the final color needed to be dark enough to create the ebony appearance the homeowner wanted without hiding the character of this unusual floor.
That's what made the finished result so satisfying.
We started with a distinctive 3-5-7 pegged oak floor and gave it a completely different personality while preserving the craftsmanship that made it special.
We didn't hide the old floor under a black color.
We used the dark color to show the old floor in an entirely new way.
Patrick Daigle Hardwood Flooring, Inc.
Fourth-Generation Hardwood Flooring Craftsmanship Since 1927
NWFA Member
Ranked #1 in Hartford County and #1 in Connecticut by BusinessRate
Serving Portland, CT 06480, Middletown, Cromwell, East Hampton, Glastonbury, Marlborough, Middlefield and surrounding Connecticut communities.