In his search for the perfect Italian home, Terry Peery found the ultimately imperfect wood floor.
For two years Peery and his wife Donna had been designing and building their dream home in Tyler, Texas, a suburb about halfway between Dallas, TX and Shreveport, Louisiana.
Peery said it was their dream to not only make the home feel Italian but feel rustic and lived-in. Altogether; they have 2,600 square feet of wood floors in the home.
“It’s our personal home and we love Italy so we wanted to build an authentic Italian farm house with old stone, stucco, etc. and so we designed it that way,” he said. “We wanted this to really be authentic so we wanted the wood floors to match.”
According to Peery, they couldn’t get a contractor in Texas to offer them the same type of lived-in look that they wanted. Many offered to scrub the surface of the wood planks they were using but that wasn’t to his liking.
“I was online searching for some type of way to finish the floors. We wanted that old, hand-rubbed lustery look that comes with time and age on the floors and we couldn’t get anyone in Texas to apply anything but traditional products; and that’s not the look we wanted,” Peery said.
“I looked at several gallery photos on the Waterlox.com website and knew instantly that that’s what I wanted. We used the Waterlox Original traditional finishing system and it turned out great, and exactly like we wanted.
Both wood working professionals and do-it-yourselfers have used Waterlox products because Waterlox produces a unique wood finishes line even amongst others who use Tung oil in their formulations. Waterlox Original Tung oil finishes are resin-modified Tung oil based wood finishes; and, because they are resin-modified Tung oil finishes, they penetrate into the pores of the wood and form a film that is water-resistant, elastic and stands up to foot traffic and common household spills.
The difference between standard products and Waterlox Original Sealer / Finish can be found simply be walking on it, according to Peery.
“You can tell the difference just by walking on the different finishing systems in bare feet,” he said. “When you walk on a urethane finished surface, it’s like walking on a plastic hard surface, but with Waterlox Original, it’s like walking on the wood; it has a totally different feeling to it. You can tell it has soaked into that wood because it’s softer and more natural.”
Waterlox finishes are different from other types of wood finishes on the market and offer a “best of both worlds” alternative. For example, raw oils penetrate into the wood but will not provide any real protection to the substrate and will need to be recoated often. Surface finishes such as urethanes (either water or oil-based) will lie on top of the surface, look more like plastic, can be brittle and once breached will fail. The reason we are the best of both worlds is because Waterlox penetrates like raw oil, but protects and nurtures the wood without being brittle and having the plastic look of surface finishes.
Waterlox finishes penetrate into the pores of the wood and build up to a film that protects and nurtures the wood; and on top of all that are easier to restore and re-coat.
About Waterlox
Founded in 1910, Waterlox Coatings Corporation, based in Cleveland, Ohio, is the nation’s leading manufacturer of premium wood finishes, handmade from natural Tung oil. A fourth-generation, family-owned company, now run by Chief Executive Officer Jay Hawkins and Vice President Kellie Hawkins Schaffner, Waterlox continues to manufacture products using the finest ingredients, combining Tung oil, resins, mineral spirits and other ingredients to produce a complete wood finish that gives the look and feel of naturally oiled wood. Waterlox products represent the flooring industry’s highest level of quality protection for both interior and exterior wood finishing projects and also supply tools for application.
For more information about Waterlox, please visit www.waterlox.com or call (800) 321.0377. To visit Waterlox on Facebook, click HERE, or you can follow Waterlox on Twitter at @tungoilfinishes.
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