Mansions have been sprouting up like daisies along the Florida coast lately, and Claudio Quant of Port St. Lucie, Fla.-based CQ Hardwood Flooring has been aiming to seize the opportunities by staying creative and making sure each job he completes is top-notch.
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Mansions have been sprouting up like daisies along the Florida coast lately, and Claudio Quant of Port St. Lucie, Fla.-based CQ Hardwood Flooring has been aiming to seize the opportunities by staying creative and making sure each job he completes is top-notch.
It's been an effective strategy––he landed the 6,000-square-foot project featuring this custom European oak entryway by doing a similar design for the client in the past.
"I guess he liked it so much that when he built this new home, he contacted me,” Quant says.
The homeowner’s daughter sketched the design for the new entryway, and Quant and his four-person crew saved it as the last piece of the large installation project to ensure movers and other trades wouldn’t be walking on it after it was installed.
Once the rest of the 9 1/2-inch-wide prefinished engineered European oak flooring in the new home was in place, Quant drew out the entryway design using chalk lines and then began the cutting process the only way he could—very carefully.
“In a prefinished floor, every cut has to be exact,” Quant says. “It's the most time-consuming and hard part of it."
With the lines drawn and the boards cut, Quant dry-fit the darker borders first, then filled in the lighter pieces. Once he was certain everything was flush, he removed the pieces and used adhesive to glue them to the ¾-inch plywood subfloor.
"All of that I did by myself because with things like that, I don't trust anyone else,” Quant chuckles of installing the unique entryway, which he completed in a smooth two and a half days. “I always want to be on top to make sure that when we're done with it, we don't have to go back and do anything else."
But chances are Quant will indeed be going back—to work on yet another project for the client, that is.
"The homeowner loved it and he promised that if he had any future work he would be contacting me,” Quant says. The craftsmanship also caught the eye of the home builder, who offered Quant work in a few other new mansion projects he had lined up in the area.
"They're big homes and they're still building a lot of them,” Quant says.
Suppliers:
European Oak Flooring: Urban Floors | Adhesive: Bostik | Saws: Makita | Saw Blade: Diablo Tools
All Things Wood Floor, created by Wood Floor Business magazine, talks to interesting wood flooring pros to share knowledge, stories and tips on everything to do with wood flooring, from installation, sanding and finishing to business management.
