Hidey-ho, Keith Long here with Thunderheart Flooring, based out of Greeley, Colo. I am a custom wood flooring technician. I have worked side by side with my wife, Robin, and by myself at other times. Although I have been paying attention and refining my craft for a decade, I don’t claim to know it all. I have over 500 floors under my belt and have been paid on every single one of them.
For those of you that are not familiar with me or my company, I got out of the rat race two years ago at the age of 40. I don’t have to work these days if I don’t want to since I formulated a plan to retire young, then worked that plan to fruition. That being said, the last two years I’ve still been actively working in the wood flooring industry. I’m passionate about it, I’m still physically able to contribute in this way, and it keeps me sharp.
I intend to present a blog post once a week this year. I believe words are powerful, and I am planning on choosing mine carefully while corresponding with all of you. I believe you deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. I intend to post on the subjects of books I like, customer relations, subfloor preparation, installation, sanding, and finishing techniques, strategies for retirement, custom installation, and more as we take this journey together. I am open to suggestion if there are subjects any of you would like for me to go through in this format.
Greeley is one hour north of Denver and one hour south of Cheyenne, Wyo. The picture at right is the indoor/outdoor thermometer at our home on the morning of this writing in early January 2017. It’s 65.5 degrees Farenheit (18.6 degrees Celsius) inside our home, with 19 percent relative humidity indoors. Outdoors, negative 14.6 degrees Farenheit (negative 25.9 degrees Celsius), with the relative humidity too low to register. Although it’s not always this cold in Colorado this time of year, it can be.
On the left is a picture of the floors in the formal dining room in our home. What you see is red oak, with jatoba (Brazilian cherry) and hickory bordering that was glued down over concrete eight years ago. With 19 percent relative humidity, there is no cupping, crowning, or gapping. During the remodel of this home after we purchased it, the wood was set in after we were through texturing, painting and tiling, and was properly acclimated before installation. A suitable vapor barrier epoxy and adhesive was used, and here this floor is, still serving us well eight years later with the original finish.
Do you see the plume of smoke in the picture of our home and horses? We heat the water and air for our home and outbuildings with an outdoor wood furnace. A tree service rents a shop from us and dumps off their hardwood removals at our place for free, which saves them from having to pay to dump it off at a recycle center or landfill. We installed this furnace when we bought the place eight years ago and have never had to purchase any propane or natural gas to heat our home. It paid for itself in three years and has a 25-year warranty.
With the home fires burning and the horses tended to, I decided to take a walk and gather my thoughts about getting back into blogging again. When it’s way below zero like this, the snow makes a different sound beneath a person’s feet. At right is the Cache La Poudre (which means "Hide The Gunpowder") River that meanders through our property. Two miles past our place is the confluence of the Cache La Poudre and South Platte rivers. A person can see the moisture rolling off these rivers in the cold weather.
As I walk under red willows that grow big, but fast, I think about businesses that do the same. I look forward to sharing some conclusions I’ve arrived at having been affiliated with business ventures that have grown in this manner.
In essence, I want to correspond with you so that our businesses can become more refined, our customers more satisfied. I envision high-quality work being done in this industry, with hardwood flooring technicians being able to submit bids and land projects at prices that educated craftsmen ought to be able to ask for and receive. Coupling that with sound financial planning, a person will be able to retire in a reasonable time frame, before becoming too worn down by this demanding trade. I imagine I’ll learn as much from all of you as you will from me as we get to know who one another are and exchange ideas.
The cold weather here is making me think of warmer places—I live 8,880 miles (14,291 kilometers) from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia. Whichever wood flooring contractor posts in the comments by January 23, 2017, that they live the closest to Uncle Edy’s Ice Cream on Todd Street in Alice Springs, I’ll mail you a copy of "The Richest Man In Babylon." No matter where you are in the world, if you are reading this and looking forward to future posts where we can interact and become better at this craft together, feel free to put in the comments your name, where you are from and how far you are from Alice Springs.
Let’s pick it up again next week with a look at a 5-inch #2 white oak floor I laid on a 45-degree angle in Fort Collins, Colo., with a five-tier white oak and santos mahogany border and French knot corners. Until then, stay sharp!
