Installing flooring while living in your home is not for the faint of heart, in fact it may be only for the crazy. We learned a lot of lessons which we will do a whole post on!
*hallmark floors provided our flooring at a discounted price. All of the opinions are our own*
We own a kitchen renovation company so I am all to familiar with my clients struggles and how hard a flooring renovation is on the home and family. I feel like, even I was not prepared for this and I do renovations for a living. Yes, it was that horrible. LOL.
So worth it but so horrible.
Because our floor was not even in good enough shape to be the sub floor we chose to run plywood throughout the home. We have very tall baseboards, I think about 9″ so we chose to leave them on for the flooring and add quarter round later. All the doors had to come off and be trimmed down too. 
The good news though is that this allowed us to put the flooring down lengthwise. YAY!
Go Time!
The flooring needed to acclimate for a bit and then it was construction time. Isn’t it pretty already?!
Here is a close up of all that texture! Saw dust and all! I am seriously obsessed with Hallmark Floors! 
This is a side view of the wood. Engineered wood is still WOOD. The quality is determined by how thick that top layer is. It should be refinish-able at least a few times. Our top layer is solid hickory. And the bottom layers are essentially plywood so the floor actually ends up feeling more solid than a hardwood floor. The biggest difference in our old floors vs the new floors is how solid they feel! When you can put your feet through the floors and can bounce all over them your floors are not in good shape! It took us a few weeks to get used to the new solid feeling!
Our floors have 3 different widths which may be my favorite part of the floor. Not a lot of orange undertone, just a nice medium brown which is what we were going for.
Before I do a final reveal and lessons learned (there were a lot) I know you will ask a lot of questions and my local readers will want to know who they can have install them! When you call a flooring installer they should be able to go to the distributor and get you samples to view, here is the specific line we used: https://hallmarkfloors.com/hallmark-hardwoods/organic-567-engineered-collection/
Every project has its ups and downs and being in the industry I know this. I learned a lot through this process regarding contractors and questions to ask and even how to improve things for our own clients to prevent some of the same experiences I had and I will share all that with you. I have been hunting for flooring installers to refer for you and I have a name, although we have not personally used them.
First, I went to Hallmark Floors website and found this advice:
5 steps you need to know before buying/installing your new Hallmark Floors:
1. Choose the right retailer and installer.
- Make sure they are in good standing with their community.
- Read their reviews.
- Get references.
- Check out their craftsmanship by asking for installation photos of their prior projects.
2. Be on site when your new floors arrive.
Verify that they are the correct collection and color before they start the installation process.
3. Review our quick Installation Guide before they start the installation.
4. Read our Maintenance & Warranty guide. This guide explains how to maintain your new floors.
5.Register your floors with Hallmark and receive a FREE bottle of cleaner.
The first step there is very important. Get SEVERAL positive references and ask for close ups of jobs.
While I haven’t personally used them I have heard very good things about Creative Floor Concepts here in St Louis. I am working on one more referral for you too.
Anyway, you want to be very comfortable with whoever you choose and make sure you are on the same page for the whole projects. There are a lot of things to consider throughout your flooring project and we are going to help you with what you need to know after the reveal!
