Lumber Liquidators narrow oak flooring

[dlminehart]

Anybody used Lumber Liquidators products? They have some narrow white oak select flooring, unfinished, for only about $2.40/sq ft. I was thinking of replacing the old ceramic tile in my entry with the oak, so it would match the adjoining living room floor. I wondered about the LL product, specifically the haphazardness of the color and number of knots, which translate into percent I'd expect to throw out. Also about the smoothness of the top . . . i.e., how much sanding must I do? And the evenness of the thickness, straightness of sides, and such.

A related question: is it possible, using prefinished wood, to not have that "every board is separate" look? One thing I like about finishing the floor myself is that it gets a single, smooth surface coating. The prefinished ones I've seen all look like collections of separate boards, even those that have square rather than rounded corners on the top. Can one do a single (or double?) coat of finish over the prefinished floor to get the smooth top? How well does this work?

[chopnhack]

I would have to say shop around, at $2.4 unfinished you still have the expense and labor of finishing it yourself. Unfortunately any finish we can do safely in our homes will not be as hard as a al03 factory finish. I have used these before and they are very good, I am sure their are many other good choices and other will chime in soon as well.
http://www.fastfloors.com/lp_10163,0...roduct.htm#NAV

[sparkeyjames]

The thing I find with Lumber Liquidators is that their prices are anything but liquidation pricing. I have always thought that their name was misleading. They do however come up with some great deals from time to time.

[jziegler]

I'd be somewhat cautious. My in laws got some "close-out" prefinished oak from LL, and the guy that installed it for them was not too happy with it. The random length tended towards shorter rather than longer, the color wasn't as consistent as he would have liked, and he hated the glue that they sold. The floor does look good though.

I also think that the solid oak Bruce flooring at home depot has been a similar price at time, although I don't know if that's the width that you want.

Jim