Sometimes when I travel, I stop by a local flooring retailer after dinner to chat with their staff and find our what’s really going on in their business.

When I started my career back in the ‘80s, 98 percent of what I did was install, sand and finish 2 1/4” and 1 1/2” Red Oak flooring. My coworkers and I always looked forward to working with something out of the ordinary, which for us was a job that called for white oak or maple. The very idea of installing a factory-finished floor went against the principles of my craft. Safe to say, that has all changed. Today, we see more and more exotic species, an assortment of gloss levels, hand-scraped, hand-sculpted, distressed, reclaimed, renewable…you name it. Engineered hardwood is now the norm and factory-finished flooring is the standard. So what happened?

When I think back to the first wood floor installation that I observed, I recall the trainer making a reference to installation instructions as the "dustpan in every box." Over the years, I continued to hear that statement and I must admit to using it myself in training seminars. Yet in truth, wood floor installation instructions are vital to anyone -- whether he be a well-trained installer or a weekend warrior attempting to install a DIY floor project.

I recently had some work done on my wood floors, including resanding and refinishing. A few boards needed to be replaced, and the installer who put in the original flooring was going to replace them.