light colored hardwood debate, lum liquidators, depot & corner store

racebum · 07-26-2010, 07:02 PM

just getting ready to buy around 1000sq/ft of hardwood and have checked out most every place in my local area. we have the dog and pony show sellers that want double retail just because they have a pretty store, we have the box stores and one nice corner store that's just a guy who buys pallets and sells 500sq minimum orders for pretty decent deals. earlier, i looked at lumber liquidators, junk, well, unless you spend $5-6sq they had some nice stuff, lower cost flooring was crap though. there's the local corner store that just does hardwood. i liked this guy, 20yrs as an installer and runs his own show. for $2.99 there is shaw hickory engineered with a lifetime on the finish, $3.79 there is strand bamboo that's so hard you can smack it with a hammer and it won't dent. then we have home depot with 3/4" solid hickory for $3.59 which is a special buy and very cheap for as nice of a product as it is. any ideas? friendly advice? this is my first time with doing hardwoods. till now it's been carpet and tile. one really neat feature of the strand bamboo is floating click lock construction. this on it's own saves me $250 for a floor stapler and box of staples.

anyway, open ear here on advice before i spend nearly $4,000 on flooring. i really did want to keep the cost around $2.00sq but the quality seems to suffer down there quite a bit.

firehawkmph · 07-26-2010, 09:47 PM

anyway, open ear here on advice before i spend nearly $4,000 on flooring. i really did want to keep the cost around $2.00sq but the quality seems to suffer down there quite a bit.[/quote]

Racebum,
I'm sure you have heard the old adage about quality and cheap price. You can't have both. When you look at LL's better stuff, they have quite a selection. So if you are looking for something different, I would give them a second look. Most of their better stuff is from Bella wood. Seems to have a very nice, tough finish and carries a 50 year warranty, whatever that means. If you are leaning toward the hickory, make sure it's straight. Hickory is pretty tuff stuff. If you get a bunch of bowed wood, you'll have a fight on your hands. I recently put in some some Australian cypress from LL and was very pleased with it. You could also check into renting a flooring nailer for a few days. Should be quite a bit cheaper than buying one. Nails aren't that expensive.
Mike Hawkins

FlooringDude · 07-27-2010, 10:04 AM

I would suggest that you wait and save some more money or plan on a smaller area for now. Yu are not buying a large enough quanitiy for any sizable discount and $2.00 a sq ft for hardwood is bottom of the barrel quality. You are already saving money by doing it yourself so I would suggest not to waste you time putting down cheap stuff. Installing hardwood is very repeatitive and boring when it's 2 1/4" cheap crap that is not milled correctly and is denting from walking on it. I would by from a home center like Lowes or home depot because you can easily return extra boxes and buy everything you need.

racebum · 07-27-2010, 04:11 PM

longer i look the more i agree with what you guys are saying. up around $4/sq the quality of product is drastically higher. home depot's 3/4" plank hickory is just a gorgeous product and may be the way i go. it's solid 3/4" plank, either this or the high end strand bamboo. with a 10% off coupon that hickory drops to 3.23sq which is i deal i haven't been able to beat for price to quality. LL also has bellawood ash in 3/4" plank for $3.49

DangerMouse · 07-27-2010, 04:16 PM

Check Craigslist often for great deals on large and small quantities of flooring.
I see it all the time, although with varying prices and quality and quantities.

DM

racebum · 07-29-2010, 04:05 AM

found a variation on craigslist. since i live in a fairly major import export hub i drove down to the docking terminals and checked out some of the wood/tile importers. i found a few thousand sqft of 3/4 plank hickory for $2.50sq that were considered seconds but extremely good. tiny ding here and there, 1/32" out of true every so many boards. also had first choice birch for $2.70sq. you had to buy 1000sq or more for these prices but i do believe i found my hookup