About Finishes for Floors

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Flooring Finishes

Architects & Designers

Custom Builders

Your choice of finish is going to determine how the wood looks and what kind of maintenance will be required long term to keep it looking sharp. In the end it is a conversation you should have with your installer, but we have a strong preference for oil based finishes, at least as the first coat. Oils bring out the natural beauty and luster of the wood's color and figure. Typical Glazed Pre-Finished Floors Other flooring companies pre-finished flooring is coated like a glazed donut with 8 or more thick coats of aluminum oxide to the point where its hard to tell if its really wood or just colored vinyl. For years we avoided pre-finishing floors because what was available made the wood look like plastic. Until we found our Natural Woca Oil finish Penetrating Oils. These soak into the wood, with subsequent coats building up protective layers. More of a natural, old-style look than polyurethane finishes. Easy to re-apply and touch up in heavy traffic areas, but you may have to touch up more often. Look for brands like Waterlox Tung Oil, Daly's Floor Fin for a semi-gloss to glossy sheen (depending on how you apply), OSMO Hardwax Oil for a satin sheen or WOCA Natural Oil for that European flat/matte look. Polyurethanes Either oil or water based, very commonly used these days, tough and will hold up well, but when you want to re-finish you will have to do the whole floor. Water base poly over a well cured Oil base poly is a good way to combine low voc while getting the luster of oil. Swedish or Acid Cured Finishes Trade name is Glitsa, it's a very tough, maybe the toughest finish out there. Brings out the color like oil finishes. Must be professionally applied, very toxic while it cures. Many installers will no longer use this finish. Plan to be out of the house for a few days to a week.

Green Mountain's WOCA Satin Oil Pre-Finished Flooring

Pre-finished flooring is perfect for remodeling projects where you are working in your living space and you want to avoid the time and mess of sanding and finishing in your home. We wanted three things from our pre-finished flooring when we decided to design our line. We wanted it to bring out the rich warm colors of the wood the way a natural oil does. We wanted durability and moisture resistance. And we wanted the floor to be easily spot refreshed & repaired, so the occasional ding or scuff could be simply touched up rather than needing to move all the furniture out in order to sand and re-finish the whole house. Oh, and that it was zero VOC LEED approved was a bonus.

WOCA has been a European tradition for decades and is currently used on almost a third of all wood floors sold in Europe and their factory applied finish exceeded all of our hopes and expectations.

Silky Sheen

It's a silky sheen finish that penetrates and becomes part of the surface the floor. A natural look for homeowners who like living ON their wood flooring as opposed to living OVER their floor.

Easy to Clean, Easy to Refresh

Regular maintenance provides a fresh nourishing and protective layer on the floor, making the likelihood of a full refinishing extremely rare. Each order of our pre-finished flooring includes a care kit for repairs and maintenance.

Basic Cleaning instructions here

Annual ReFresh instructions here

Zero VOC

Zero VOCs: meet or exceed the most stringent VOC (volatile organic compound) regulations in North America. Qualifies for LEED IEQ Credit 4.2 and LEED MR Credit 6 (link to our LEED/Eco-Status page).