Marietta Wood Flooring has handled wood-flooring in Austell for more than 20 years, sanding, repairing and installing hardwood for owners who want the floor they already have made right before anything gets replaced. We start each job by reading the boards themselves: how they sit, what finish is on them, whether moisture or insects have been at them, and what the house can tell us about when they went down.
That matters here because the city’s housing did not arrive all at once. Some houses carry decades of refinishing, wax and patchwork, while others still have the builder oak they were sold with. The right sanding plan, finish and repair method depends on which of those you own.
We quote what we find in writing, room by room and stair by stair, so you can decide what to do now and what can wait. No floor is sanded until we know what it is made of and what is sitting on top of it.
Floors in a Town Chartered Around a Railway Terminal
Austell was incorporated by an act of the Georgia legislature on September 4, 1885, and took its name from General Alfred Austell. Its first city limits were not a grid or a county line but a circle with a half-mile radius, measured out from a railway terminal used by the Georgia Pacific Railway and the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad.
A Town Built Around the Depot
The Georgia Pacific made Austell more than a stop. The city’s own history describes it as a transit station and a division node, the point where rail traffic was split and routed onward. The charter drew the town around the railway rather than around a courthouse square.
For floor work, the history is context rather than a diagnosis. Age alone does not tell us what is under a carpet or how many times a floor has been sanded, so we check the wear layer at a floor vent or threshold before we promise a full refinish.
Slow Growth, Then Two Waves
The railroad did not bring a population boom. Austell counted 582 residents by the 1890 census, and it was 1940 before the city passed 1,000 people. Most of what stands today came much later, in two distinct periods of building.
The Census count shows 1,288 of the city’s 3,176 housing units, or 40.6 percent, built before 1980, with the 1970s alone adding 619. Then the 2000s produced 1,057 units, 33.3 percent of the total and the largest single decade in the count. Those two groups ask for different things from a flooring contractor, and the next two sections take them one at a time.
Looking for wood-flooring closer to Buckhead? See Buckhead Wood-Flooring.
Refinishing Austell’s Pre-1980 Houses
A floor in a house built before 1980 has usually been through several owners, and each of them may have left a layer behind. Before we pick a grit sequence, we find out what finish is there, what repairs have been made and whether anything underneath the surface has changed.
Checking the Build Year Before Sanding
Federal lead-safe rules under the EPA RRP Rule reach homes built before 1978, and a drum sander running over an old painted edge or threshold is exactly the kind of work those rules address. We confirm the build year before any sanding starts and set up the job accordingly.
Our dustless sanding rigs collect most of the fine dust at the drum sander and the orbital sander. On an older house we pair that with containment and cleanup suited to the build year, rather than treating every job as if it were new construction.
The 1970s matter most here. With 619 of the city’s units built in that decade, a house from those years can fall on either side of the 1978 line, so we go by the recorded build year rather than a guess from the trim or the kitchen.
Wax, Shellac and Patched Openings
Paste wax and shellac were common finishes long before waterborne polyurethane, and they are still under the grime on plenty of older floors. A modern finish laid over wax will peel, so we test the surface, identify what is there and strip it fully before a new coat goes down.
Older houses also carry scars where a wall came out, a floor furnace was removed or a register was moved. Instead of dropping in a square patch that reads from across the room, we lace in new boards so the joints stagger into the existing run and the repair disappears once it is stained and finished.
Termite Damage Found Ahead of a Closing
When a wood-destroying insect report or an Official Georgia Wood Infestation Inspection Report turns up damaged boards, a sale can stall. We work with sellers and buyers to cut out the damaged sections after the pest company has treated and replace them with matching boards, so the repair is done and documented before the closing date.
We never fill over subterranean termite or powderpost beetle damage. Frass, mud tubes and hollow spots tell us how far the damage runs, and we open the floor until we reach sound wood before a single replacement board goes in.
Floors in Homes Built in the 2000s
The houses built in Austell during the 2000s make up a different kind of job. These houses often came with prefinished or site-finished builder oak, and after fifteen or twenty years of use the finish is worn through at traffic lanes while the wood below is still sound.
Builder Oak Worth Keeping
Builder-grade red oak and white oak from that era can usually be refinished rather than torn out. The catch is the wear layer: some of those floors have thin stock above the tongue and groove, so we measure what is left before we commit to a full sand rather than a screen and recoat.
If there is room to sand, a fresh stain and finish changes the whole look of the room. We lay out stain samples on your own boards, because the same color reads differently on red oak than on white oak, and orange oak from an aged finish often calls for a neutralizing tone.
Cupping and a Humid Summer
Georgia summers push moisture into wood floors, and cupping or crowning is a common call from newer houses. Sanding a cupped floor while it is still wet grinds off the raised edges, and when the boards dry they crown and the finish fails.
We read the boards with a moisture meter first and find out where the water is coming from, whether that is a leaking line, a missing vapor retarder or high indoor humidity. Only when the readings settle do we sand, so the floor stays flat after we leave.
Carpet, Laminate and Stairs
Plenty of 2000s houses came with hardwood in the entry and carpet everywhere else, including the stairs. We pull carpet, pad and tack strip, remove laminate or luxury vinyl plank, and run solid hardwood or glue-down engineered flooring through the rooms you want to match.
Stairs are priced tread by tread, not by the square foot, because each tread, riser and nosing is cut and fit on its own. That way you know exactly what a staircase costs before you decide to include it.
Where new hardwood meets existing tile or the old entry floor, we fit a reducer or matching threshold and finish the edges with quarter round. Leaving the proper expansion gap at walls and doorways keeps the new floor from buckling the first humid season after it goes in.
Owner-Occupied Detached Houses in the City of Austell
Of the 3,033 occupied housing units in Austell, 64.6 percent are owner-occupied, and 93.4 percent of those owner households live in one-unit detached houses. That shapes the kind of work we see here: owners making long-term decisions about floors they plan to live with.
Owners Planning for the Long Term
An owner in a detached house has more choices than a tenant or a condo resident. You can sand and change the color, add a herringbone border, run wide plank through an addition, or choose a harder species such as hickory where pets and traffic are heavy, with Janka hardness as a practical guide.
We also help owners choose a clear finish by its federal VOC category under 40 CFR 59 Subpart D, rather than by the number printed for opaque floor coatings. Waterborne polyurethane, oil-modified polyurethane and hardwax oil each wear differently, and we explain which suits your household before the first coat.
Sheen level is part of the same decision. A satin or matte sheen hides the fine scratches and pet traffic that a gloss finish shows under window light, and we can put down a small test area so you see the result in your own rooms before the whole floor is coated.
Water Damage Traced and Documented
When a supply line fails or an appliance leaks, water stains and buckling can spread well past the visible puddle. We trace the source, dry the area, and measure and photograph each room before any board comes up, so your insurer has the readings and you have a record of the condition before and after the work.
Once the subfloor tests dry, we replace only the boards that need it and weave them into the surrounding floor. Then the room is sanded and finished as one surface so the repair does not stand out.
Working Within the City Limits
The City of Austell sits mainly in Cobb County, and a small portion of the city extends south into Douglas County. We confirm which side of that line your address falls on at the start, so any paperwork the job needs goes to the right office.
We also plan finish work around the weather. Coats cure more slowly on humid days, so we watch the National Weather Service forecast for the Cobb zone and schedule sanding and coating for a stretch that lets each coat dry before the next one goes down.
From the pre-1980 houses to the ones built in the 2000s, we bring the same process to each floor: read it, test it, repair what is damaged, then finish it to last.
- 20+ Years on Wood Floors
- Free Written Estimates
- Moisture Checked Before Sanding
