Quite Simply a Hero

Oscar is a excellent installation coordinator, a great communicator and now a local HERO. Oscar was honored by our local King County sheriffs dept., by being presented with the MERITORIOUS SERVICE AWARD by none other than the sheriff herself. He was picked up and escorted to the presentation by officer friendly himself. First time he got to ride in the front of a cruiser. see pic. of both outside of our of Seattle store.

Below is copy of an article that ran in a recent copy of the Stranger,written by David Schmader. It talks about our hero and why he won this award.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22 Attentive readers will recall the Metro bus saga of May 2008, when a man inflamed by mental illness and/or religious fervor boarded a bus and began beating a fellow passenger, who happened to be a blind woman. Reporting from the scene: Hot Tipper Oscar, aka Oscar Grey, who rushed to the woman's aid and, with the help of his fellow passengers, restrained the crazy clobberer until cops arrived. Today brings a most gratifying coda to this story, courtesy once again of Hot Tipper Oscar, who this afternoon was escorted by a King County Sheriff's deputy to the regional training center in Burien, where he—along with five of his fellow passengers—was given a meritorious service award for his help in stopping the assault. Congratulations to Oscar, who describes his award as "parchment in a green leather folder embossed with the King County insignia in gold." The wonderfully specific text: "To commend your actions when you intervened in an assault on a visually impaired woman on a Metro coach. The assault suspect was distracted and restrained by you and other passengers until King County deputies arrived on the scene. Your efforts kept the victim from suffering more serious injury." Hurrah for all.

Sustainable Rain-forests?

Ipe impressions. Both the grain and color mimic the Brazilian Walnut (ipe) wood species. A unique finishing & grain embossing surface process transforms the appearance from bamboo into that of an exotic Brazilian Hardwood floor. When bamboo is the sustainable material of choice but a wood grain is more desire-able from the perspective of design, theIpe impressions option is ideal. This renewable floor has Low Voc’s, counts for LEED points and the bamboo plant from which this is harvested, lives on to be harvested again.  The adhesives used are free of components classified as hazardous to the environment. No solvents, no heavy metals no bactericides.  No rainforests were harmed in the making of this floor.

New Product addition

An even wood surface in the field of the plank, a slightly higher than normal gloss level. Hand burmished darkened areas throughout the flooring. Hand painted/darkened french bleed beveled edges outline the 6" width of each plank.

8 coats of treffic aluminum oxide, 1/2 thick real wood, multi-directional plied grains. Glue, nail or floating installation all approved with this exciting new high design release. We have it by the truckload. Buy it for just under half the price of it's $9 flooring store price. Its why we say....

simplefloors

taste. the difference

Product Videos

We are working on a series of information videos for all of our flooring collections. These videos contain highlighted details about the features of the collections and are designed to save you reading time. We have just started this project and are working on editing graphics and flooring pictures into the appropriate frames within the videos. Already It has been a fun project and the actual flooring consultants from e-sales dept, volunteered there time to do the scripts. We will not have all of them posted online for probably 2 months or so, still working debating internally the most user friendly, logical place to post these on the simplefloors site itself. Click here to check out our first test video 

Hand-scraped wood floors. Why and where to use

Design theme?
Hand-scraped wood floors when created using tradition and actual human artisan techniques create value in any home. These floors are not limited to a particular design theme. They adorn perfectly, the most minimal to the ultra traditional. Hand crafted goods add value. Regardless of whether you plan on ever selling your home, installation of authentic hand carved flooring increases the appeal and wow factor of any home. We have had many customers comment on their homes selling and attributed it in part because of these handcrafted floors being installed.

Realistic costs are possible on handscraped wood floors The art form of authentic handscraped floors is something that motivates us at simplefloors. Not only do we boast the largest species selection and handcrafting techniques of hand-scraped floors, our beginning price point starts below $3.00 per square foot.

The hanscraping techniques:
Time Worn Shallow Sculpt
The least aggressive of the hand-scraping techniques. The hand tool lathe is used to gently carve valleys into the surface of the floor. The edges of the floor are also carved to 

an uneven, random state.

Flowing uneven paths throughout the surface are characteristics of this hand scraping technique. The Time Worn Technique, accomplishes the natural uneven effects of foot wearing patterns and subtle textures. 

Saw KerfThis hand scraping technique consists of a multitude of Smaller chisel marks in selected groups running throughout the body width of the wood surface. Smaller intricate lines arranged in close proximity to each other produce whole unique distressed sections of the floor. Primarily due to the arrangement and creation of the smaller marks and greater quantity of them this is one of the most time consuming hand distressing processes.

Chisel impactUsing a sharp flat end chisel, the artisan applies blows with a hammer to the top of the chisel. The end of the chisel is held to the wood surface at an angle. The chisel is then placed at the adjacent edge of the fist blow mark, again at an angle. A small pie shaped indent randomly placed throughout the body of the wood surface results. Chisel i

mpact is not only one of the most striking in appearance it is one of the most time consuming hand scraping techniques and of no surprise by far one of the most requested. On some stained colors, deeper tint is often applied to the marks themselves creating further contrast with the surface for an authentic time aged appearance. The Hand Chisel Impact is not able to be mimicked by machine and takes the average artisan one day to complete 75 square feet.

Cross Slash
A series of stacked line gouges carved into the planks surface using a flat gouge blade. 

Typically this vintage technique is accomplished using multiple scrape marks and at an angle to the length of the plank. Original craftsmen did not have the power tools to achieve perfect

planed surfaces. The stitch cross gouge will range in size depending on the intent of the artisan and resembles the scrape mark left

 by the overcut of a tooth saw blade. Darkening tints will often be applied to the Stitch cross gouge making it more visible. This scraping technique is often used as a compliment to one or more of the other scraping techniques.

Zipper punch
The zipper punch distressing technique is used as a complimentary element of the overall distressing technique. Not as conspicuous as most techniques it can actually resemble a small metal zipper indents side by side on the surface of the wood floor. To further describe this distressing technique, you might imagine what a coarse, often referred to as “bastard file” file imprint stamped into a wood surface would look like. This techniques re-creates the impression of the teeth marks left in the wood by a hand held coarse file used centuries prior.

Hand-rubbed & toned
The process in which the flooring stain is applied heavier and lighter in various areas of the plank. This creates an uneven depth of color ranging from nearly translucent to dee

ply opaque. The goal is to achieve a very uneven time weathered look with the use of color stain. Often times this is used in conjunction with hand sculpting techniques to provide further depth and texture to the surfaces. This technique results in a surface with a variation of tones within the given stain color.

Bamboo flooring that may surprise

Made of Bamboo, Premium Green's new strand woven hardwood flooring is not only breathtaking visually, it is a renewable "hardwood" floor produced organically without the use of fertilizers nor pesticides. The bamboo is harvested in approx 5 years and the plant it left alive and healthy to regrow once again. Something that can not be said for domestic tree species not to mention the exotic brazilian hardwoods that are under depletion.

If you want the exotic look of a brazilian hardwood the new strand woven collection might be the place to look. The original tones were in the steamed darker brown tones or the lighter natural tone. Now by mixing and weaving a variety of both we have the Charred and Raw options. Great choices and neutral colors all with an unexpected 3000lb janka hardness rating matching that of the Exotic Brazilian Walnut tree. This is twice the hardness rating as maple, standard bamboo flooring and Oak.

What about the cost? It is priced lower than our solid brazilian wood options.

So if you want the look and hardness rating of an exotic hardwood floor but do not like the idea of walking on the product of a dead rainforest, consider the strand woven bamboo option by premium green bamboo. Click here to view the color options of this new strand woven Premium Green bamboo flooring option