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About Us
We established Wood
Floor Products, Inc. nearly 20 years ago when we developed a unique wood
grain filling compound. The product was utilized exclusively by our
contracting crew a few other friends in the wood finishing business. When
other wood flooring contracting companies asked to buy these products from
us we established a local distributing business offering other products for
sale along with our fillers. Over the next several years, we developed a
number of other filling products and researched the field of finishes
searching for better waterborne products than were on the market. A need for
really good waterborne flooring finishing products was evident. Most of the
products available were either not very durable or were just as toxic
(sometimes even more so) than other solvent or oil-based products already on
the market.
Europe seemed many years ahead of the US or Canada with the research and
development of these products so our investigation was centered there. After
a number of years researching and investigating we found several
manufacturers that had a few products on the market for other industries and
also seemed open to the idea of creating new products or modifying some of
their existing products to fit our needs. We created names and labels for
these new products and Wood Floor Products, Inc., was on it’s way.
Environmentally sound and contractor safe products has always been our
byword.
The Oak Floors of Greenbank,
Inc., opened up shop on Whidbey Island in the early 1970s when the phrase
was coined: “Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the
lights.” Only a half dozen oak flooring mills survived after the purge of
the 1960s, when the FHA began sanctioning wall-to-wall carpeting in lieu of
hardwood.
New construction was slow and wood flooring projects nearly nonexistent. A
woo flooring contractor might do a sports floor one week and a curved
staircase the next. Seeking a larger population base, The Oak Floors of
Greenbank moved to Seattle in 1977. There they began specializing in
custom-designed borders and inlays of stone, tile, metal and wood. By the
early to mid 1980s a majority of their projects involved patterns,
medallions, borders or unique compositions of stone, tile and exotic wood
inlays.
It was late in the 1970’s that Paul Roman, Publisher of Taunton Press
called and asked Don Bollinger, owner of The Oak Floors of Greenbank, Inc.,
if he would write an article or two on inlaying wood for a new magazine he
had begun publishing called “Fine Woodworking”. Eventually Bollinger
finished numerous articles on wood flooring for Taunton Press’ newest
magazine “Fine Homebuilding” on everything from installing strip
flooring to wood flooring over radiant heat. Finally in the late 1980s
Bollinger completed a book for Taunton entitled “Hardwood Floors”. This
book along with it’s accompanying videos, “Laying Hardwood Floors” and
“Sanding and Finishing Hardwood Floors” have become the industry
training standard for the installation and finishing of hardwood floors.
Over the years Bollinger has helped write or edit many if not most of the
training manuals within the wood flooring industry. In addition, he has been
instrumental in helping to organize and develop most of the schools within
the various wood flooring trade organizations for helping to educate
beginners and expert craftspeople alike.
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