Hardwood Flooring in Fairport, NY

Hardwood Flooring in Fairport often means working with floors that are close to a century old. Census estimates show that 59.6% of the housing units in the village were built in 1939 or earlier, and the median year built is 1938. Floors in houses that old have usually been sanded at least once, sometimes painted around the edges, and often patched where a wall or a chimney used to be. Restoring them is careful work, and it is the work we like most.

The village grew up around the Erie Canal

The land under the village was swampy until construction of the Erie Canal drained it in the 1820s. By the late 1820s Fairport, then known as Perrinsville, was a busy canal port, and it was incorporated as a village on April 30, 1867. In the 19th century, businesses such as DeLand Chemical and Cobb Preserving, a predecessor of American Can, grew up there, and the railroad's arrival in 1853 added to the village's industry. The houses on the streets near the canal reflect that long run: you can find older frame houses next to early twentieth-century homes and later infill.

Refinishing floors that have been refinished before

Every full sanding removes wood. On a floor that may be close to a century old, the first thing we want to know is how much is left. We check the board edges at a floor register or threshold. If the wear layer is thin, we lean toward lighter work: a fine sanding pass, or a screen and recoat if the existing finish is sound. If there is plenty of wood left, a full sand and refinish can take out decades of wear. We also look for:

• Face nails that need setting so the sander does not catch them
• Old paint lines and shellac or wax finishes that need different prep before modern finishes go on
• Previous patches in a different species or width
• Loose boards over old plank subfloors

Matching boards in an old house

When a radiator leak or a removed wall leaves a gap in the floor, the repair only looks right if the new strips match the old ones in width, species and grain. Older houses often have widths that are not stocked at big-box stores. We measure the existing boards, source the closest match, and weave the new pieces in so the seams stagger like the original. After sanding and finishing the whole room together, the patch should be hard to find.

Two-family houses and rentals

Fairport is not all single-family homes. About 14.4% of the village's housing units are in two-unit buildings, and about a third of homes are rented. Owners of doubles often want floors refinished between tenants on a tight schedule. A screen and recoat can usually be done and walked on far sooner than a full refinish, and we can phase work unit by unit so one side stays occupied.

Painted trim and lead

Homes built before 1978 fall under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule when work disturbs lead-based paint, and in a village where most houses are older than 1940, painted baseboards are common. We point out painted trim during the estimate and plan around it, keeping sanding on the wood floor and away from painted surfaces where we can.

Elsewhere in Perinton

Many people use the name Fairport for much of the town of Perinton. Perinton stayed mostly rural until the 1950s and then filled in with subdivisions, so a house a mile from the canal may have oak floors from the 1960s or 1980s instead. Those floors are often ready for their first or second refinish, and we handle them too, along with new solid and engineered hardwood installs, stair treads and board replacement. Call (585) 632-6150 or

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