Sanding & refinishing · Residential
Forest Hill heritage restoration
Complete restoration of 1920s quarter-sawn white oak. Hand-worked finish, custom walnut stain.
What the job actually involved
The floors had been screen-coated twice in twenty years and still showed traffic lanes. We sanded to a honest grit sequence, repaired two water-stained boards at the butler's pantry, and finished in a custom walnut toner under a matte waterborne two-component. Stairs were included so the run from foyer to third floor reads as one piece of millwork.
Specification
- 1,850 sq ft
- Quarter-sawn white oak
- Custom stain
- Matched 28 treads
What a job like this costs today
$25,217 – $35,773
1,850 sq ft plus 28 steps in Toronto, 2026 band, HST extra. 4–6 days incl. cure window on site.
The job type behind this
Each entry carries the published 2026 band, the sequence, and the failure modes that produce a second invoice.
What goes wrong on a job like this
Sanding a floor that has already been sanded to its limit
The tongue is exposed and the board is finished — permanently. On quarter-sawn stock this destroys the ray fleck that is the entire reason the floor is worth restoring.
Avoided by: Measuring the wear layer first and recommending a buff-and-recoat when that is the honest answer.
Colour approved against a modern trim sample
Century trim has ambered for a hundred years. A stain matched to new stock reads pink or grey beside it, and the mismatch is permanent.
Avoided by: Sampling against the surviving original millwork in the room itself.
All 3 failure modes for heritage quarter-sawn oak restoration
Taking this on in Toronto
Free on-site measure for any qualified hardwood, stair, or railing job.
Toronto is 5 km from the Sterling Road workshop, and 12 of the twelve job types in the catalogue are taken here. Solid white oak on wood joists, engineered over concrete condos, stair retreads in 3-storey semis, and porch restorations on Parkdale and High Park Victorians.
Want this specification in your house?
City, service and size gives you a 2026 GTA band in about twenty seconds. We lock a number only after a moisture reading on site.
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