Should I Choose Pre-Finished Wood Flooring or Site-Finished?

Whether you choose site finished or prefinished wood floor is really a personal choice. The prefinished floor will have beveled edges (or small spaces between the boards), while the site finished will be a smooth surface. The majority of jobs we do are site-finished, but we do install prefinished wood. The 5″ hickory pictured on left is site finished, while the 5″ Doussie Dakar (an exotic wood from west Africa) is prefinished.

One thing to think about when making this decision is that if you get a prefinished product, and put it in one room of the house, and then years later decide you want to extend that wood to other parts of the house, or you need to do a board replacement due to damaged wood, it may be harder to match the existing wood, because sometimes the prefinished flooring type is discontinued. Sometimes the less expensive prefinished products don’t have sufficient enough finish applied to keep the product looking beautiful for a long period of time, and may require an earlier sand and finish. Make sure you ask the distributor about that. Also, when the prefinished floor is ready to be refinished, due to the beveled edges, more of the wood may need to be sanded off to get the smooth floor surface.

Of course, a site finished floor is a bit more inconvenient, due to the sanding and finishing process. Try to find a company that does the dust-free sanding, like Magnus Anderson Hardwood Floors. We use water-based finishes that dry quickly, so the homeowner doesn’t have to be off the floor for an extended time.

In the end, it’s really up to you to decide on the look you like the most.