Marietta Wood Flooring brings more than 20 years of hands-on work to wood-flooring in Atlanta, and the city hands us a wider range of floors than almost anywhere we go. One week the job is a bungalow with boards laid a century ago; the next it is a unit high in a tower, governed by an association with rules of its own. We start every visit by working out which of those we are standing in.
In practice that means three reads before any quote. We read the build year before a sander is plugged in, we read moisture with a meter before a cupped board is touched, and we read the paperwork before we price work in a condo or rental. Refinishing, board replacement, new hardwood over old carpet and stair work all begin from those checks.
There is one thing we will not do, and that is answer for the city. Where a property carries a historic designation, we point you to the office that decides and plan our work around what it tells you.
Floors in a City With 31,609 Pre-1940 Homes
The Census Bureau’s 2024 five-year American Community Survey counts 31,609 of Atlanta’s 265,899 housing units as built in 1939 or earlier, roughly 11.9 percent of the city. Craftsman bungalows dominate its low-density neighborhoods, and many streetcar suburbs date from the 1890s through the 1930s. Those houses have had decades of refinishing, patching and covering, and each layer changes how we approach the wood underneath.
Old Finishes Under the Grime
Older floors often carry paste wax or shellac rather than polyurethane, sometimes under a later coat that never bonded well. We test the finish before we choose a grit sequence, strip what is there, and only then lay down waterborne polyurethane, oil-modified polyurethane or a hardwax oil. A modern coat applied over old wax peels, and no amount of care afterward fixes that.
Sanding an old floor is also a thickness question. Each past pass with a drum sander took wood off the top, so we look at how much remains above the tongue and groove before we decide between a full sand and a lighter screen and recoat. Hollow spots and loose boards get fastened first, because a sander will find them for you in the worst way.
Lead-Safe Rules for Older Houses
Census figures put 42.7 percent of the city’s units before 1980, which is why build year is the first question we ask. Federal lead-safe rules under the EPA RRP Rule and TSCA Title VI reach homes built before 1978, and old finishes and painted trim near the floor can fall inside them. We confirm the year from your records before any sanding starts.
When a house falls on the older side of that line, the work plan changes with it. Containment, dustless sanding and cleanup are set up around the rule rather than added as an afterthought, and we tell you what that means for the schedule before we begin.
Patching Where Walls, Registers and Floor Furnaces Came Out
Decades of renovation leave scars: a wall moved, a floor furnace removed, a register relocated. We patch those openings by lacing in boards woven into the old run, so the repair reads as floor rather than a square filled with new wood. Matching width, species and grain comes from boards we pull and identify on site, not from an assumption about what the house was built with.
The same approach covers insect damage. Subterranean termites leave mud tubes and hollowed boards, while powderpost beetles leave fine frass and pinholes. Once your pest company has treated, we cut out the damaged wood and lace in matching boards rather than filling over it.
Looking for wood-flooring closer to Midtown Atlanta? See Midtown Atlanta Wood-Flooring.
Landmark, Historic and Conservation Districts in Atlanta
The City of Atlanta protects historic property through Chapter 20 of its zoning ordinance, titled HC Historic and Cultural Conservation Districts. Section 16-20.004 sets five categories of protection: Landmark Building or Site, Historic Building or Site, Landmark District, Historic District and Conservation District. The minimum criteria for designation speak of integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.
Landmark Districts on the city’s list include Cabbagetown, Druid Hills and Castleberry Hill. Historic Districts include West End, Grant Park, Inman Park and Collier Heights, and Brookwood Hills is listed as a Conservation District. Published counts of how many districts the city has designated do not agree, so we check a specific address rather than rely on a total.
What the Certificate of Appropriateness Covers
The Atlanta Preservation Center states that certain changes to any contributing building in a city-designated district require a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Atlanta Urban Design Commission. Chapter 20 includes sections on certificates of appropriateness and on their types and procedures. The sources we have read do not say whether interior floor work is one of those changes.
So we do not tell you that your job is covered or that it is not. A floor contractor guessing at a commission’s answer puts the owner at risk, and the owner is the one who has to live with the result. The honest answer is that the city decides, and we wait for it.
Checking With the City Before Work Starts
If your home sits in one of these districts or is designated on its own, we ask you to contact the Urban Design Commission or the Department of City Planning before we schedule. Find out whether the building is contributing and whether the work you have in mind is a change they review. We will describe the scope in writing so you can hand them something specific.
Once you have an answer, we plan around it. That may shape how we handle board replacement, what finish sheen we recommend, or how we lay out stain samples on a spare section before the full floor is colored. Water popping and test patches let you see a result before anything is committed.
Atlanta Homes Built Since 2000
The other half of the city’s housing story is recent. Census counts show 54,067 units built from 2000 to 2009, 45,252 from 2010 to 2019 and 10,692 since 2020, together 41.4 percent of all units. Floors in these homes raise different questions than a century-old bungalow does.
Prefinished, Engineered and Site-Finished Floors
Many newer homes have prefinished or glue-down engineered flooring, and an engineered wear layer can only take so much sanding. We measure that layer before recommending anything, and where it is thin, a screen and recoat or a board replacement is the right call rather than a full sand. Site-finished solid hardwood gives us more room to work with.
Newer floors wear in predictable ways. Traffic lanes down a hallway, sun fade near tall windows, pet urine stains near a back door and water stains around an ice maker all show up on floors only a few years old. We sort which of those a refinish removes and which need boards cut out.
Moisture Before Any Sanding
A floor that has cupped in a humid summer is carrying moisture, and sanding it flat while it is wet leaves a crown once the boards dry. We take moisture meter readings across the room and compare them to the subfloor before deciding anything. Cupping, crowning and buckling each point to a different cause, and the cause has to be dealt with first.
Sometimes that means running a dehumidifier and waiting, or finding a slow leak. Board gapping in winter and tight seams in summer are normal movement; a floor that stays cupped for weeks is not. We would rather return in a month than sand a floor too soon.
Replacing Carpet and Vinyl Plank With Hardwood
Plenty of newer homes were built with carpet, laminate or luxury vinyl plank in the main rooms. We pull the carpet pad and tack strip, check the subfloor, allow for acclimation and an expansion gap, and install solid hardwood or engineered wood suited to the room. Stairs come along too, with stair treads, stair risers and stair nosing priced tread by tread rather than by the square foot.
Transitions matter as much as the field of the floor. Where new hardwood meets tile or an existing floor, we fit a reducer or matching threshold and finish the edges with quarter round, so the change in height reads as planned. Species choice follows how the room is used, and we can walk you through red oak, white oak, hickory and maple by Janka hardness and grain.
Floor Work in Large Condo and Apartment Buildings
Atlanta has 91,357 housing units in buildings of fifty or more units, and 53.6 percent of occupied units are renter-occupied. That makes associations, landlords and move-out inspections a routine part of floor work here rather than an exception.
Association Rules and Your Declaration
Before we start in a condo or townhome, we read your own declaration and rules for what they say about flooring changes, work hours and deliveries. Georgia associations operating under the Georgia Condominium Act set their own requirements, and they differ from building to building. We would rather see the document than assume what it holds.
If the rules call for board approval or specific underlayment, we plan the job around that answer. Checking early keeps a finished floor from becoming a dispute with the board.
Water Damage in Stacked Units
A leak in a tall building rarely stays in one unit. We trace where water entered, dry the floor, and measure and photograph it room by room before any board comes up. That record helps you, your association and any insurer agree on what happened and what was replaced.
Replacement boards in a unit have to meet the surrounding floor cleanly. Where the original floor is prefinished, we source a product that matches its width and finish; where it was site-finished, we weave new boards in and blend the finish across the room so the repair does not stand out as a patch.
Move-Out Estimates for Landlords
With most occupied units rented, turnover is constant. We write itemized floor-damage estimates a landlord can set against a move-out inspection, separating ordinary wear from pet damage, deep scratches and water stains. Each line names the area, the problem and the repair, so a deduction rests on something specific.
For finishes in occupied buildings, we choose clear coats by their federal VOC category under 40 CFR 59 Subpart D rather than by the number meant for opaque floor coatings. That keeps the product choice defensible and the smell manageable for neighbors sharing a hallway.
- 20+ Years on Wood Floors
- Free Written Estimates
- Moisture Checked Before Sanding
