Pine Wood Flooring with Heart Pine - We provide information and news on Pine Wood Floors and Pine Flooring made from Heart Pine Wood. Heart Pine Wood is harder and stronger and will help make your Pine Wood Flooring last longer. Heart Pine Wood gives your Pine Wood Floors a darker colour. Pine Wood Floors made from Heart Pine will make your Wood Flooring last longer and look better.

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If these old Chinese timbers could talk, what amazing stories they might tell

"I stood during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900," they could say.

"And I withstood the Cultural Revolution of the '60s and '70s."

"I carry pieces of them inside me," they call out to workers who remove bullets and other artifacts from the ancient Chinese elm Pine Wood.

Timbers that held up houses and temples in China for two centuries or more are finding new life here, as Mountain Lumber Co. saws them into floors and tables for a decidedly high-end market.

Mountain Lumber markets the recut elm as slices of history that could date to the Ming Dynasty, which prevailed for three centuries before expiring about 350 years ago. It's an odd twist on products from China, whose economy thrives partly on turning Pine Wood from American forests into furniture and flooring that is shipped back to America's big-box stores.

Willie Drake, the founder and president of Mountain Lumber, found some challenges as he negotiated the purchases, timber by timber. Each piece had a different owner, and the price that Drake thought was agreed upon kept rising.

"It's never over until the shipping container is out of the port," Drake said.

Chinese elm is hardPine Wood with a mellow golden patina. Many of the boards are marked with a distinctive brown grain that ripples evenly along their length.

But it's not just the beauty of the hardwood that attracted Drake.

"The ultimate thing, for me, is the history of the Pine Wood, the story it has to tell," said Drake, who founded Mountain Lumber 31 years ago.

The company's genesis came from Drake's discovery that timbers made from American heart pine, a wood that isn't on the commercial market anymore, could be reclaimed from old factories and barns for customers who wanted heritage lumber in their new structures.

Mountain Lumber has evolved into a business that reclaims Pine Wood from many countries and many uses, such as the aging vats used in breweries. Drake competes with about 30 U.S. companies in selling reclaimed Pine Woods, he said.

If the timbers could talk, they might say, "These new owners are paying more for us in dollars than our first owners, who were wealthy in their day, could earn in a lifetime."

Mountain Lumber gets $18 to $20 per square foot for Chinese elm. It sells other kinds of Pine Wood, such as heart pine or various oaks, for prices ranging from $5 to $12 per square foot.

By contrast, hardPine Wood flooring at Lowe's and Home Depot ranges from $4 to $8 per square foot.

"New woods are homogenous," said David Foky, the company's marketing director. "They don't have the history and character of other woods."

"We sell to the end user -- architects and homeowners," Drake said.

Mountain Lumber's reclaimed woods can be found in Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, Foky said.

Mountain Lumber's Pine Wood also shows up in Jefferson's other home, Poplar Forest in Bedford County, and in museums and restaurants, Foky said.

"We can enhance it and help people live a part of history," Drake said.

Residential customers who buy the materials usually are building top-of-the-line homes, Foky said, but sometimes a young family will buy enough historic Pine Wood for a single showcase room in their home.

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The beauty of hardwood floors

Like all natural products that experience change over time, wood floors experience subtle color changes as they age. This is a natural process called patina that will add to the beauty and character of the floor.

Different species of wood flooring will experience color changes at different rates. In general, more-common species such as oak and hickory will experience minimal color change over time, while less-common species, like

American cherry and Brazilian cherry will show more color change over time. These changes are natural, but can be minimized with a little prevention.

Two factors influence color changes in wood floors: sun exposure and the finish that is applied to the floor. Over time, prolonged sun exposure will cause wood floors to change color. Think about how skin reacts when exposed

to sunlight. Wood reacts in much the same way, and homeowners can minimize this effect by periodically moving rugs and furniture to limit that exposure.

The second factor that can cause wood floors to change color over time is the finish used. Oil-modified finishes will amber over time, giving the floor a slightly yellow appearance. In contrast, water-based finishes generally

will remain clear over time, minimizing long-term color changes.

Homeowners can access a variety of information about the benefits and care of wood floors from the National Wood Flooring Association's web site, woodfloors.org.

The National Wood Flooring Association is a not-for-profit trade organization of more than 3,700 wood flooring professionals working worldwide to educate consumers, architects, designers, and builders in the uses and benefits of wood flooring. The NWFA can be contacted at 111 Chesterfield Industrial Blvd., Chesterfield, MO 63005, or at 800-422-4556 (USA), 800-848-8824 (Canada), or 636-519-9663 (international).

Source: http://www.happynews.com/news/1182006/The-beauty-of-hardwood-floors.htm

Q Our kitchen is floored with Victorian pine that has been sanded so many times we are loath to do it again for fear of weakening the boards. It has had several coats of Ronseal Diamond Hard floor varnish, but when our young grandchildren come to stay their activity scrapes the varnish off. If we varnish over the scrapes they are preserved for all to see. Is there a better product that we could use? GN, Hereford

A The harder the varnish and the more coats there are, the more likely it is to chip or scratch. A more resilient finish would be wood stain, as this soaks into the surface of the boards, so there is nothing to chip. Unfortunately this would necessitate first stripping off the varnish, using paint stripper, and sanding back to bare wood.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2006/01/25/pask25.xml&sSheet=/property/2006/01/25/ixpright12.html