flooring contractor recommendation

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heffalump

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does anybody have any flooring contractor recommendations? we are getting all standard for our newly constructured home from the builder and are looking to do hardwood floors throughout the house and stones for the bathrooms.

Does anybody have any experiences with buying the materials and then hiring someone just for their labor? or is it a better to go to get the material and labor in one shot?

Thank you!
 
Tompkins Flooring in Irvine at Culver Plaza (to the right of Petco) is very easy to work with - ask for Rick. We got an estimate from them for our new construction home. the price differential is about 3K so not sure if it is worth the headache of having the floors all ripped up and replaced after we close.  we are doing tile/carpet throughout, so the savings are probably not as good as what you may save since you are doing wood/stone, im guessing the builders markup on hardwood/stone is more than on tile.
 
qwerty said:
Tompkins Flooring in Irvine at Culver Plaza (to the right of Petco) is very easy to work with - ask for Rick. We got an estimate from them for our new construction home. the price differential is about 3K so not sure if it is worth the headache of having the floors all ripped up and replaced after we close.  we are doing tile/carpet throughout, so the savings are probably not as good as what you may save since you are doing wood/stone, im guessing the builders markup on hardwood/stone is more than on tile.
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Thanks for the rec, getting some estimates done as well.  Pass by this place many times, but never went in.  Nice to work with a local business.

FYI, Costco now sells carpet (maybe they did but I had never seen it at my local District location).  There was a booth today setup in the store.  They're taking appointments and will come out to give free estimates.  Benefit of Costco is the 3% rebate if you got the black card and use AMEX.  Also the booth lady says it is a Costco product, so it has the Costco 100% guarantee (might be hard to return carpet though).
 
Tompkins did my carpet and did a great job at a reasonable price.  Venetian Flooring Systems did my wood flooring and even my dad said they did wonderful work. 
 
We used New York Carpet and Tile in Fullerton (Placentia?).

They have overruns and overstocks but it's high quality for a great discount.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
We used New York Carpet and Tile in Fullerton (Placentia?).

They have overruns and overstocks but it's high quality for a great discount.
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I picked up my tiles at Floor Decor in Santa Ana (off Dyer and the 55)...lot of selection (have tiles, wood, stone, etc) and good prices over there but they don't offer installation.
 
Thank you! appreciate all your input.

We got some outrageous quote from the design center - it came out to be about $20 per square foot for hard wood and we didnot pick the high end types. that is why we decided to go with the inconvience and do it after close.
 
heffalump said:
Thank you! appreciate all your input.

We got some outrageous quote from the design center - it came out to be about $20 per square foot for hard wood and we didnot pick the high end types. that is why we decided to go with the inconvience and do it after close.
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You shouldn't pay more than $9-$10/sf if you go outside and that also includes baseboards.
 
Looks like we're leaning towards Venetian for our wood flooring, Eric came out, was the only contractor out of 7 that gave us a quote on the spot, out the door price too.  Includes 4" baseboards.  Price was around $8 per sq ft for engineered wood 5"wide planks.  will paint the baseboards as well.  Won't charge to rip out old carpet but around $2 per sq ft for tile demo.  Too bad they only do hardwood.

Also booked Simple Floors, but the guy never showed, called me an hour later and said wanted to show us floor samples, I was like, we booked 6pm for an estimate and you never showed.  He wants to come back tomorrow but I told I'm not interested anymore.  The guy didn't even apologize for wasting my time, said he was told he had an hour "window.". Not a good sign.

Tompkins flooring also came by, the guy spent 1.5 hours and double measured EVERY room..  I was impressed by the attention to detail, still waiting for their bid though. 
 
ps9 said:
Looks like we're leaning towards Venetian for our wood flooring, Eric came out, was the only contractor out of 7 that gave us a quote on the spot, out the door price too.  Includes 4" baseboards.  Price was around $8 per sq ft for engineered wood 5"wide planks.  will paint the baseboards as well.  Won't charge to rip out old carpet but around $2 per sq ft for tile demo.  Too bad they only do hardwood.

Also booked Simple Floors, but the guy never showed, called me an hour later and said wanted to show us floor samples, I was like, we booked 6pm for an estimate and you never showed.  He wants to come back tomorrow but I told I'm not interested anymore.  The guy didn't even apologize for wasting my time, said he was told he had an hour "window.". Not a good sign.

Tompkins flooring also came by, the guy spent 1.5 hours and double measured EVERY room..  I was impressed by the attention to detail, still waiting for their bid though. 
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Yeah, I loved how with Venetian the price included everything including the painted baseboards.  They finished installing over 1,000sf of wood flooring (including stairs) and baseboards EVERYWHERE in 2 days.  Tompkins installed 700sf of carpet in about 4 hours. 
 
ps9 said:
Tompkins flooring also came by, the guy spent 1.5 hours and double measured EVERY room..  I was impressed by the attention to detail, still waiting for their bid though. 
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Did you pick out the type of wood you wanted?  For us, after the measurements we went to their store tue next day and picked out the tile and carpet we wanted and then got the estimate right there before we left.
 
I got my flooring done by Venetian Flooring about 6 years ago.  I didn't know it at the time, but I believe they put in the baseboards incorrectly.  From what I'm reading now, it should be done first (touching the cement floor) and all flooring should be cut to align to it.  The way they did it was to lay all the flooring down first and then the baseboards would sit on top of the flooring.  I guess the reason for this is to make life easier if you end up replacing the flooring the future.
 
woodburyowner said:
I got my flooring done by Venetian Flooring about 6 years ago.  I didn't know it at the time, but I believe they put in the baseboards incorrectly.  From what I'm reading now, it should be done first (touching the cement floor) and all flooring should be cut to align to it.  The way they did it was to lay all the flooring down first and then the baseboards would sit on top of the flooring.  I guess the reason for this is to make life easier if you end up replacing the flooring the future.
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It looks ugly if you have the baseboards on the concrete with wood flooring or tiles (you have to have it like that way for carpet installation though).  I told them to run the wood to the wall and then put the baseboard on top of it.  I don't want a runner molding.
 
woodburyowner said:
I got my flooring done by Venetian Flooring about 6 years ago.  I didn't know it at the time, but I believe they put in the baseboards incorrectly.  From what I'm reading now, it should be done first (touching the cement floor) and all flooring should be cut to align to it.  The way they did it was to lay all the flooring down first and then the baseboards would sit on top of the flooring.  I guess the reason for this is to make life easier if you end up replacing the flooring the future.
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They did it correctly. Wood flooring is never cut to align exactly. They have to allow a gap for expansion and contraction. If they had done the baseboards first then the floor, you'd have quarter-round installed up against the baseboards. That doesn't look as good. With carpet, the baseboard is installed first, but in my experience, not on the concrete. The baseboards are leveled with baseboards on a wood or tile surface where the flooring transitions.
 
I think the 2nd way is the correct way because it's too hard to make exact cuts to match the edge of the floorboards to bhe baseboards.

I believe the baseboards are designed to hide imperfect edges when using wood flooring.

For tile, you can install after baseboards because grout takes care of the edges.
 
Thanks for the clarifications.  With wood it makes sense, but with tile, I guess the baseboards should have been installed first.
 
woodburyowner said:
Thanks for the clarifications.  With wood it makes sense, but with tile, I guess the baseboards should have been installed first.
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I've had tile installed three times by three different people, all before the baseboards go down. One guy said he refused to do it after because "it looks ghetto" seeing the grout line especially when the pattern ends on a cut tile. Ghetto, indeed.

From an esthetic standpoint, if you want to give the baseboards some height as is flavor of the day, they have to go down on top of the flooring, especially if you don't have 5" baseboards. Imo, quarter-round looks sloppy. It's actually one of the things I avoided when shopping for houses. I had to have some put down after I had kitchen cabinets installed to keep the original tile, which did not run under the cabinets. It bugged me so much, I ripped it out and replaced it with shoe molding. Not a huge difference, but less obnoxious for sure. I was lucky the grout lines were thin enough I could get away with it, but that's not always the case.

 
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