New hardwood floors are a beautiful sight before the furniture’s been moved in. In fact, a customer once told me they hadn't moved their furniture back in yet because they just loved looking at the new wood in their living room, and it had been over a week since we had finished them.
With nothing at all covering them up, the character of the wood and the craftsmanship of the installers is a sight to behold.
Don’t worry. That beauty doesn’t go away once you move into the room. In fact, one of the reasons hardwood floors are so popular is that they enhance the beauty of furniture—and furniture does the same for floors.
But first you’ve got to get the furnishings in there.
If you don’t take some precautions, your new floors might not stay that way for long. Fortunately, it’s not difficult to protect new wood floors when moving in furniture (or large appliances). Here are a few simple tips:
Carry furniture in and set it in place without sliding it across the flooring. Even if you’re weary from moving, resist the urge to set furniture down and then slide it into place. Just a few inches of sliding can damage the floor.
When decorating, don’t slide furniture. There’s a good chance you’ll want to move furniture around to get the room just as you want it. Don’t just slide the pieces across the floor! If furniture needs to be moved, pick it up again (as long as it’s not too heavy, of course; in which case see below.
When using a dolly to move items, make sure it is a soft-wheeled dolly. In addition to scuffing, hard dolly wheels can create ruts in the flooring.
Use the “blanket/hardboard” method with very heavy furniture or appliances. Some items—such as refrigerators, range stoves, and pianos—are so heavy that they’re difficult to push on a soft-wheeled dolly. In those cases, you can use a hard-wheeled dolly, as long as you take steps to protect the floor.
Cover the floor with blankets where you’ll be rolling the dolly. Then you’ll need two pieces of some type of smooth hardboard, both wide enough for the dolly to roll across. The boards need to be really hard—cardboard won't work for this.
Set the boards one after the other, roll across the first onto the second, and then move the first into place after the second. Keep doing that until you’ve got the item in place. Take your time and don't rush this process.
Err on the side of caution. Better safe than sorry, as the saying goes. If you worried that the way you’re thinking about moving something might damage your floors, why take the risk? A few moments of precaution are a small price to pay to be sure.
Talk with the hardwood floor company that did your floors about their moving recommendations. I can’t speak for all hardwood floor companies, but I know that at Ralph’s, the very last thing we want is for one of our customers to damage their floor moving stuff around. We’ll gladly offer specific advice about what you can do to protect your floors when moving furniture and appliances. Upon request, we will even provide our customers with a couple of pieces of hardboard for those really heavy pieces!
