Hardwood Flooring · Portland, OR
Every
Plank
Placed.
Old floors brought back to life, or new ones built to outlast you — done start to finish by one person, not a crew you've never met. And if you're torn between refinishing and replacing, I'll tell you which one your floors actually need.
Hardwood Installation◆
Floor Refinishing◆
Custom Inlay Work◆
Dustless Sanding◆
Old-Growth Fir Restoration◆
Hardwood Installation◆
Floor Refinishing◆
Custom Inlay Work◆
Dustless Sanding◆
Old-Growth Fir Restoration◆
Mostly Word Of Mouth
What they said
after.
“
Marcus refinished our 1940s fir floors and they look better than they ever have. He spent two extra days on a bad section near the kitchen that most guys would have glossed over. Meticulous doesn't cover it.
“
We wanted a herringbone border around the dining room — something we'd seen in a magazine and figured no one local could do. Marcus showed us three ways to execute it and explained the tradeoffs. The floor is a genuine showpiece.
“
Got three quotes. Ironwood was the only one where the owner showed up in person, not a salesperson. The quote was fair, the timeline was accurate, and he cleaned up every day before he left. No hesitation recommending him.
Almost everyone I work for came from a neighbor's recommendation
Start Here
Save them,
or start over?
Almost everyone who calls me already has wood somewhere — under the carpet, under thirty years of finish, under a stain by the back door. Before you spend a dollar on new flooring, the real question is whether what you've got can be saved. More often than people expect, it can.
Usually possible
Refinish
If your boards are solid and have enough wood left above the tongue to sand, a refinish brings them back for a fraction of replacing them — and keeps the tight old-growth grain you can't buy today. For most pre-1970 Portland homes, this is the answer.
When it's just a spot
Patch & blend
A water-stained patch by the door or a few boards wrecked under the fridge rarely means the whole floor is finished. I weave in matching boards and refinish the room as one piece, so the repair disappears.
When it's truly spent
Replace
If the boards have been sanded down to the nails, the species is failing, or you want a different look entirely, new is the honest call. When you're there, I'll say so — I won't talk you into saving a floor that's done.
Refinishing earns me less than tearing your floor out and starting over. I'll still point you to a refinish whenever the wood has life left in it — because it's the right call for you, and it's the one that gets my name handed to your neighbor.
What It Runs
What floors cost,
by the square foot.
Flooring is sold by the square foot, so you can ballpark your own project tonight. Measure the room — length times width — find your range below, and you'll know if I'm in your budget before we ever talk.
Refinish (sand & finish what's there)$3 – $8 / sq ft
New install (boards + labor)$9 – $20 / sq ft
Repairs & board weavingQuoted per spot
Inlay, borders & herringboneQuoted per design
Say you've got a 15-by-20 living room — that's 300 square feet. Refinishing it runs roughly $900 to $2,400. New white oak in the same room is closer to $2,700 to $6,000. That gap is the whole reason it pays to know whether yours can be saved first.
What Moves the Number
Species
Domestic oak is the value end. Walnut, maple, and anything exotic costs more to buy and more to work.
Solid vs. engineered
Your subfloor and your moisture levels decide which fits — and the two price out differently.
Subfloor & stairs
A flat, sound subfloor keeps it simple. Leveling, repairs, and stair treads — slow, exacting work — add up.
Finish & sheen
Oil, water-based, or hardwax; matte to gloss. Some cost more but hold up to dogs and kids far better.
Dustless sanding and a clean house at the end are in every number I quote — never a surprise line that shows up on the final invoice.
Why Floors Fail
Wood moves.
Cheap installs ignore it.
Most of what people blame on “bad wood” traces back to one mistake: someone treated a living material like it was tile. Wood swells and shrinks with Portland's wet winters and dry summers. Work with that and a floor lasts a century. Fight it, and here's what shows up.
01
Cupping & crowning
Boards that dish or hump after the first wet season. That's moisture, not bad luck. I meter your subfloor and let the wood acclimate inside your house before a single board goes down.
02
Winter gaps
Lines wide enough to lose a crumb in once the furnace kicks on. A little seasonal movement is normal — finger-wide gaps mean the wood was never acclimated.
03
Sanding swirl & chatter
Cloudy swirls and washboard ripples that only appear once afternoon sun rakes across the floor, when the crew is long gone. I work through every grit and check under raking light before any finish goes on.
04
Blotchy stain
Fir and pine drink stain unevenly and go muddy if you skip the conditioning step. I test the color on your actual boards and show you, before I commit your whole floor to it.
05
Dust in everything
The old way leaves fine sanding dust on every surface in the house for weeks. I run a dustless system, so you're not still finding it on the windowsills at Christmas.
None of this in your house.
That's what hiring one careful person buys you. Tell me about your floors.
Book a Call →
Drag To Compare
Before &
after.
Grab the handle and drag. Same floor, two different lives — every one of these is real Portland work.
Eastside Bungalow — Oak Refinish
Portland, OR · 2024
NW Portland Kitchen — Hickory + Inlay
Portland, OR · 2025
Craftsman Restoration — Original Fir Recovery
Lake Oswego, OR · 2025
What I Do
Three things,
one pair of hands.
Whatever your floor needs, the person who quotes it is the person who does it. Your job never gets handed to whoever happens to be free that week.
01Installation
Solid or engineered, new build or remodel. I mill, fit, and finish to your room — not to whatever the warehouse had stacked.
02Refinishing
Dustless sanding, stain matched to your boards, and a finish chosen for how you actually live. Worn floors come back better than the day they went in.
03Custom Inlay
Borders, medallions, herringbone, and one-off patterns — each piece cut and fit by hand on site. This is the work I'd do for free if no one paid me.
How A Job Goes
From the first board
to the last coat.
01
Site Visit
I read your subfloor, check the moisture, and look at what you've already got. You get the honest refinish-or-replace call right there — no pitch.
02
Flat Quote
A written, per-square-foot estimate within 48 hours, in lines you can read. The number you sign is the number you pay.
03
The Work
One person in your house, start to finish. Dustless sanding, careful around your trim and cabinets, the place swept down before I leave each day.
04
Final Walk
We walk the floor together, I fix any punch-list item that day, and you get a clear schedule: when to walk on it, when to move furniture, when the rugs go back.
Before You Call
Before you
pick up the phone.
Can I stay in my house while you work?
Usually, with a little planning. I section off the work area and run dustless gear. For a whole-house refinish, most people sleep elsewhere for two or three nights while the finish cures.
Will new boards match my old floor?
I match species, cut, and stain as closely as wood allows, and on a refinish I blend the whole room so a repair disappears. Old-growth fir is the one wood that's genuinely hard to match — I'll tell you straight if yours is.
How much dust is there, really?
Far less than the horror stories. My sanders run to a dustless vacuum, so you're not wiping it off the kitchen counters for a month afterward.
How soon can I walk on it?
Socks-only after about 24 hours. Furniture in a few days, rugs after a couple of weeks once it's fully cured. You'll get the exact schedule for the finish we use.
Solid or engineered — which is right for me?
It depends on your subfloor, your moisture, and how many times you'll want to refinish over the years. I'll walk you through it at the visit instead of steering you to the one with the bigger margin.
How far out are you booked?
Usually three to six weeks. A good floor is worth a short wait, and you'll get a real start date, not a maybe.
Is the work guaranteed?
Yes. Install and refinishing are both warrantied, and because I prep right, callbacks are rare. If something I did fails, I come back.
Who's Under Your Roof
Built by
one set of hands.
Marcus Webb has been laying and bringing back floors in Portland since 2010 — long enough to have saved a lot of old-growth fir that other guys wanted to rip straight out.
He still does every step himself: reads the subfloor, picks the boards, runs the sander, lays the finish. No crew, no hand-off, no “the owner will swing by at the end.” It's slower than the volume shops. Your floor will show the difference for the next thirty years.
“I won't put my name on work I didn't do. That's the whole thing.”
