Most flooring outfits sub out the stone. Most stone shops don't touch the floor. Running both means the sequence holds together and there is one person to call when something is off.
Red oak, white oak, maple and engineered plank — nailed, glued or floated depending on the subfloor and the grade level. We rack the boards before a single one goes down so the seams stagger the way they should, and we handle the transitions, thresholds and shoe moulding rather than leaving them for someone else.
If the boards are sound, refinishing costs a fraction of replacement. We sand back to bare wood in three grits, fill and repair what needs it, then stain to the colour you pick from samples put down on your own floor — not a chip in a binder. Sealed with a waterborne or oil-modified finish depending on how much traffic the room takes.
LVP is what most of our basement, kitchen and rental jobs get, and for good reason: it is waterproof through the whole thickness, it takes a dropped pan without denting, and a good one is hard to tell from wood at standing height. We level the subfloor first — vinyl telegraphs every hump underneath it, which is where most bad vinyl jobs go wrong.
Laminate floats, which means the prep matters more than the plank. We level the subfloor, roll out the right underlayment for the room, and leave the expansion gap the manufacturer asks for so the floor does not buckle in August. Done properly it is the least expensive way to get a hard surface through a whole house.
Herringbone, checkerboard, straight lay or a border — the pattern is the easy part. What makes tile last is what is underneath: cement board or an uncoupling membrane, mortar combed in one direction, and full coverage under every tile so nothing sounds hollow when you walk it. We dry-lay the field first so the cuts land where they are least visible.
Carpet that ripples after a year was not stretched properly. We use a power stretcher rather than a knee-kicker, replace the tack strip and the pad instead of reusing tired ones, and seam in the least-trafficked line in the room. Stairs get wrapped or capped depending on how the treads are built.
We template off the finished cabinets rather than off the plan, so the counter matches the walls you actually have. Slabs are laid out before cutting to place the veining where it reads best and the seams where a sink or a corner hides them. Edge profile, overhang and sink cut-out are all decided with you before anything is cut.
Natural stone is not a catalogue item — two slabs off the same block can look like different stones. We go to the yard with you, tag the slabs, and lay out the cuts against the actual veining. Then we talk honestly about sealing and about which stones stain, because marble in a working kitchen is a decision, not a default.
Most kitchen problems are sequencing problems: the floor goes in before the cabinets, the cabinets get set and levelled before the counter is templated, and the backsplash waits for the counter. Running it as one job means nobody is standing around waiting for somebody else's sub, and there is one person to call when something is off.
Bathrooms fail at the waterproofing, and the failure shows up two years later in the ceiling below. Wet areas get a proper membrane, the slope is set before the tile goes on, and the niches and curbs are built rather than bought. The visible part is tile; the part that matters is underneath it.
That is a normal place to start. Tell us the room and what is wrong with it now, and we will tell you honestly whether it wants refinishing, replacing, or leaving alone.
