Vintage Loft is our exceptionally-long, extra-wide, textured floor. Think industrial buildings of the past. Think factories and warehouses in bustling, downtown commercial districts. Think opera house lofts or the second stories of mills. With that in mind, you’ll find yourself amid the spirit of our Vintage Loft collection.
A hat tip to history.
We enjoy floors everywhere we go. One might say we study them (you know, where study isn’t a bad thing or involves any homework).
After visiting and soaking in some of the water mills, opera houses, and old hardware stores in our area, we contemplated that rich history. Longboards still thrive and accentuate the spirit of those well-aged buildings.
We decided to pursue capturing that rich history with our Vintage Loft Collection.
As we designed this collection, we were aware we’d be throwing out some of the rules. With planks this long, shipping becomes a challenge—the boards would need to load lengthwise into trucks. But we were interested in product, not necessarily logistics. We believe there are several features that make this a special collection, but we’ll try our best to be brief.
A timeless look.
Widths of 8 1/2 inches and eight-foot long planks harken back to a time when flooring was incredibly long—when opera houses, mills, and warehouses used long-length boards.
Because we are trying to match old floors and timeless looks, most of the color on these use Revelarre (our unique coloring and tonal process). With Revelarre we change the color of the wood fibers, more so than simply adding pigment to the top of wood. With a variation of coloring throughout the board, Revelarre creates a much more natural look in our Vintage Loft collection. The wood itself gets to express its color, instead of it being told what to do, thus giving each customer a genuinely unique floor with authentic color.
Authentic texture you can’t get every day.
While other flooring manufacturers produce boards with a band-saw texture (they dry the lumber and then add the texture), we tackle the process differently.
We manufacture the flooring when the wood is green or wet, so that texture goes into the wood. Then we dry that veneer, which provides our consumers with two distinctive elements. They end up with a more rounded, more authentic texture (instead of bland saw markings on dry wood). When we cut boards, character-like knots are seen in the wood. These features are allowed to undulate and flow through, producing a very interesting and natural look.
In addition, we have a proprietary process that ensures we don’t get a uniform texture throughout the floor. When touring old mills, we saw old flooring with ample texture and random variations, and those movements in the wood were not uniform. In our process, before we put the veneer onto the core and before gluing, we sort the boards by texture. We run them through the sander and knock off all the burrs and rough spots to make it a smooth floor. We do so in a staggered process—to insure each board comes out with a uniqueness to it which helps to harken to the spirit of the past.
Design flexibility for any home.
The Vintage Loft collection is a good floor with which to mix and match colors. It matches so well because of the Revelarre coloring. The wood expresses itself naturally, and you can opt for greater variation by picking different colors and mixing them together.
With its rustic roots, Vintage Loft fits a farmhouse style well, but it also fits a contemporary look. The flooring has character, but it’s not loud and noisy. Within a modern home or office design, the wood doesn’t overpower the rest of the design choices in the room.
Vintage Loft provides a unique look in any home or office space. To find out more information, visit its collection page and order your samples today.