Hardwood Flooring Installation & Refinishing — Medford, MA

Medford enforces resident-permit parking street by street and tickets anything without a Medford-registered permit, so we check whether your block is one of them at the estimate and plan the van around it. Two dates a year matter more: the city sweeps side streets once in spring and once in fall, one zone per day, and cars left on the street between 8am and 6pm that day are towed. Commercial vehicles also cannot stay on any Medford street between midnight and 6am, which is why the machines leave with the crew every evening.

Yes, if the unit is empty on day one. A 1,000-square-foot apartment off Boston Avenue takes two to three working days to sand, the first water-based coat goes on the afternoon the sanding ends, and later coats follow at one- to two-hour intervals, so the finish is complete by the fourth day. With Bona Traffic HD the furniture can come back three days after the final coat, which puts a September 1 lease start within reach when the previous lease ended in late August. An oil-based finish cannot make that window.

Plan on $4 to $5.50 per square foot to sand and finish, which makes a 1,000-square-foot unit roughly $4,000 to $5,500 before any stain, and most single-floor jobs land between $1,500 and $6,500. Doing both units of a South Medford or Glenwood two-family in one visit falls into the $6,000 to $12,000-and-up range that whole-house work occupies, and it saves a second setup of plastic and vacuum lines. Shared stairs add to the figure because every tread is worked with an edger and a palm sander. The estimator gives a written figure from your square footage.

One of seven crews, each with its own van and vacuum setup, and one of three project managers who answer the phone seven days a week, including the Saturday your Glenwood neighbor asks why a hose runs out the front door. The crew does the sanding and coating; the project manager handles the schedule, the condo trust's paperwork and any change you want mid-job. A reference list of more than 500 past clients is available on request. The main line, (617) 618-8395, reaches the project managers directly.

Probably, in any Medford house built before 1978, which covers West Medford's Victorians and the two- and three-families closer to downtown. The floor itself is rarely painted, but sanding runs the edger against baseboards, thresholds and stair risers that may carry old lead paint, and federal and state lead-safe renovation rules treat that trim dust as regulated work. Before the machines arrive, get the contractor's certificate number in writing, and keep children and pets out of the house until the final vacuum pass.

In the mid-rise buildings north of Wellington station, including the 30-acre Rivers Edge development, the floor under the carpet is usually a concrete or gypsum slab rather than plywood, and the association typically requires a sound-rated underlayment between stacked units. That points to an engineered plank glued down over a moisture barrier, with the slab read with a meter first, rather than a nailed 3/4-inch solid floor. Book the freight elevator and confirm the building's work hours before delivery, since the wood still needs several days in the unit to acclimate. See engineered hardwood for the options.