Marietta Wood Flooring brings more than 20 years of hands-on work to wood-flooring in Dunwoody, from sanding and refinishing worn hardwood to repairing damaged runs and laying new floors where carpet used to be. Most of our time here goes into floors that have already lived a long life, and we treat each one as a record of the house before we touch it with a sander.
That record usually has layers. A floor may carry its first finish, a later coat of wax, a patch where a register was moved and a stretch of carpet laid over all of it. Reading those layers in the right order is what separates a refinish that holds from one that peels within a year.
So the first visit is an inspection, not a sales pitch. We check the build year, test the finish, take moisture readings and look at how much wood is left above the tongue. You get a written, itemized estimate that shows what we found and what each repair costs, room by room.
Homes Built Before Dunwoody Was a City
Dunwoody is a young city with an older housing stock. Voters approved cityhood in a referendum held in July 2008, and the City of Dunwoody was incorporated on December 1, 2008. Nearly all of the houses standing today were built years or decades before that date, under rules written by DeKalb County rather than by the city that now governs them.
How County Zoning Carried Into the New City
A new city cannot write a full zoning code overnight, so Dunwoody’s first zoning chapter carried the county’s rules forward. The incorporation-era Chapter 27, a document prepared for the January 6, 2009 council meeting, says that lots zoned R-CH by DeKalb County on April 12, 1999 keep that classification, and that the county’s R-CH regulations in effect on that date govern how those lots are developed. The same chapter applies the same treatment to lots zoned R-CD.
For several years the city ran on that borrowed framework. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described it as a patchwork of zoning laws gleaned chiefly from DeKalb County, and after about 18 months of redrafting and dozens of public workshops, Dunwoody adopted its own rewritten zoning code in October 2013.
What That History Means for a Floor
None of this tells us what species is under your carpet or how many times the floor has been sanded. What it does tell us is that the house was framed, floored and finished under county-era standards, by builders who never expected a City of Dunwoody to exist. We read each floor on its own terms instead of assuming the city’s current rules describe how it went in.
It also explains why neighboring houses can differ so much. Two homes a few streets apart may have gone up years apart under different county approvals, with different subfloor, joist spacing and flooring choices. That is why we measure and test in your house rather than quoting from a neighbor’s job.
DeKalb Still Runs the Utilities
Incorporation moved zoning and planning to the city, but DeKalb County still provides schools, fire and rescue, sanitation, water and sewer. When a water line fails and floods a floor, the service side of that problem sits with the county, while the damaged boards sit with you. We document the floor so the paperwork on your end is straightforward.
Looking for wood-flooring closer to Brookhaven? See Wood-Flooring in Brookhaven.
Floors in Dunwoody’s 1970s Houses
The 1970s are the single largest decade in the city’s housing count. The Census’s five-year American Community Survey puts 6,548 of Dunwoody’s 23,491 housing units, or 27.9 percent, in that decade, and 44.1 percent of all units were built before 1980. Suburban residential building here began in the 1960s, and the 1970s are when it peaked.
Build Year Before Any Sanding
Federal lead-safe rules under the EPA RRP Rule reach homes built before 1978, and a large share of 1970s houses fall on the wrong side of that line. Painted baseboards, thresholds and old stair skirts can all shed dust when a drum sander or edger passes close to them. We confirm the recorded build year before the first pass and set up containment and cleanup to match it.
Our dustless sanding equipment captures most of the fine dust at the drum sander and the orbital sander. On a pre-1978 house we add the work practices those rules call for, rather than treating a 1970s living room like new construction.
Wax, Shellac and Worn Finish
A floor from this era may have been finished and refinished several times, and some owners kept it up with paste wax for years. A waterborne polyurethane or oil-modified polyurethane laid over wax or old shellac will not bond, and it peels in sheets. We test the surface, identify what is there and strip it fully before any new coat goes down.
Worn traffic lanes, sun fade under windows and the orange oak cast of an aged finish are common here too. If the wear layer allows, a full sand with the right grit sequence takes the floor back to fresh wood, and stain samples laid on your own boards show how red oak or white oak will read in your light.
Patches Where the House Changed
Fifty years of remodeling leaves marks. A wall moved to open a kitchen, a floor furnace removed or a register relocated usually leaves a gap or a mismatched square in the run. We lace in new boards so the joints stagger into the existing floor, and once it is sanded and finished as one surface, the repair stops drawing the eye.
Cluster Homes and Older Subdivisions
Most Dunwoody owners live in detached houses. Of the city’s 21,225 occupied housing units, 56.2 percent are owner-occupied, and 79.3 percent of those owner households live in single-family detached homes. That is the core of our work here: owners deciding what to do with floors they plan to keep living on.
Detached Houses in Neighborhoods Like Georgetown and Tilly Mill
In established neighborhoods such as Georgetown, Winters Chapel and Tilly Mill, we often hear from owners who want to open up rooms, remove carpet and bring hardwood through spaces that never had it. We pull carpet, pad and tack strip, check the subfloor for soft spots and match new solid hardwood into the existing floor so the rooms read as one.
For owners who want a change of look, a detached house leaves the most room to choose. A herringbone or chevron inlay in an entry, wide plank through an addition, or a harder species such as hickory or maple for heavy pet traffic are all on the table, with Janka hardness as a practical guide.
Attached Homes and the R-CH and R-CD Lots
Not every owner lives in a detached house. The 1999 county districts the city carried forward, R-CH and R-CD, covered cluster-style residential lots, and attached homes make up part of Dunwoody’s owner housing. Townhome and condominium owners often answer to an association as well as the city.
Before we schedule work in an attached home, we check the flooring rules in your own declaration, and for a condominium, how that declaration works alongside the Georgia Condominium Act. Working to those rules from the start keeps a finished floor from turning into a dispute with the board.
Water Damage and Termite Findings
When a supply line or appliance leaks, water stains and buckling can spread well past the visible puddle. We trace the source, dry the area, then measure and photograph each room before any board comes up, so your insurer has the readings. Replacement boards go in only after the subfloor tests dry.
A termite inspection before a sale can also turn up damage. When a wood-destroying insect report or an Official Georgia Wood Infestation Inspection Report flags subterranean termites or powderpost beetles, we cut out the damaged boards after the pest company has treated and lace in matching wood, never filling over frass or hollow spots. We work to the closing date for sellers and buyers alike.
Refinish or Replace in a 1960s-1980s Home
The biggest question on an older Dunwoody floor is whether to sand what is there or start over. The answer depends less on appearance than on how much wood remains, whether moisture is moving through it and what damage sits under the surface.
When Refinishing Makes Sense
If the wear layer above the tongue is thick enough and the boards are sound, refinishing is almost always the better value. A floor with dull finish, gray traffic lanes and light scratches can come back with a full sand and new coats, and a floor with only surface wear may need nothing more than a screen and recoat.
We read the boards with a moisture meter before sanding a cupped floor. Sanding cupped boards while they are still wet grinds off the raised edges, and when they dry the floor crowns and the finish fails. Waiting for readings to settle is how a floor stays flat after we leave.
When Replacement Makes More Sense
Some floors have been sanded too many times, and the tongue is showing or nails are close to the surface. Others have board gapping, widespread pet urine stains or insect damage across a whole room. In those cases, new solid hardwood or glue-down engineered flooring is the better investment.
Engineered wood is the right call for terrace levels and other rooms below grade, where solid wood does not belong. We leave a proper expansion gap at walls and doorways and finish the edges with quarter round and a reducer where the new floor meets tile or carpet.
Finishes and Stairs
We help owners choose a clear finish by its federal VOC category under 40 CFR 59 Subpart D, not by the number printed for opaque floor coatings. Waterborne polyurethane, oil-modified polyurethane and hardwax oil each wear and look different, and a small test area shows the sheen level in your own rooms before the whole floor is coated.
Plenty of older houses still carry carpet on the stairs. We price stairs tread by tread, because each tread, riser and nosing is cut and fit on its own, so you know what the staircase costs before deciding to include it. From the first moisture reading to the last coat, the goal is a floor that suits the house it is in.
- 20+ Years on Wood Floors
- Free Written Estimates
- Moisture Checked Before Sanding
