Custom Installation How-To

Detailed step-by-step information on many aspects of custom installations, from inlaying wood, stone and metal to bending wood, making your own reducers and more.

Check All | Uncheck All

Documents

Step by Step: How to Install Wood Floor Borders

When I look at a subfloor covered with black felt paper, I see the paper as my canvas, and I am the artist. Using different borders, feature strips and species can make wood flooring installation both challenging and impressive. It's a great way to set yourself...

Step by Step: How to Install a Wood Floor Inlay

Now more than ever, contractors need something that will set them apart from the competition, and nothing is more instantly eye-catching than an inlay as a focal point. You can make your own or go the easy route of buying one already manufactured Although installing an inlay may seem intimidating...

Step by Step: How to Picture-Frame a Fireplace With Wood Flooring

What sets an experienced flooring contractor apart from an ordinary installer are the details. One detail that adds interest and value to a wood flooring installation is a picture-framed fireplace. We picture-frame every fireplace we do...

Properly Craft Your Own Wood Floor Transitions

In today's complex hardwood flooring industry, there are myriad molding thicknesses and colors. Because of this, distributors have difficulty keeping all moldings in stock. However, when you need to produce matching molding quickly on the job, it can be as easy as adapting one transition to the one that works best for your floor...

Step by Step: How to Install Wood Floor Vents

Even if you make your living by installing straight-lay strip flooring, there are still some relatively simple things you can do to upsell your jobs. For example, you can picture-frame a fireplace or a room, run flooring diagonally, or use a different species as a feature strip. Even easier than all of these, however, is installing matching wood vents...

Step by Step: How to "Bend" Wood Floors

One of the hallmarks of a truly high-end installer is the method of "bending" wood, which involves cutting a board into strips that are narrow enough to conform to a curved detail in the house and gluing them into place. There are several reasons why you should bend wood to match the curved detail versus simply...

Step by Step: How to Make Your Own Wood Flooring Reducers

There's more to a good wood flooring installation than just racking the floor correctly and banging it in. A good floor man also pays attention to the details, and part of those details are the transition strips that connect...

For decades, readers of Wood Floor Business have looked to us to deliver the information they need about installation, sanding and finishing wood floors; new wood flooring products; and running a wood flooring business. To assist readers in accessing the best of this information, we have assembled the Wood Floor Business Content Library, which organizes our most pertinent print and online features by topic. PDFs of new and archived content are available for easy download; just complete the free online registration form (it only takes a minute). Thanks for reading Wood Floor Business.