Denver Flooring Contractor Offers Eye for Detail

Joseph Savata knows all too well how, when it comes to home improvement, one thing leads to another. He and his wife recently replaced a rotted staircase and added granite kitchen countertops in their suburban Denver home. Problem was, those upgrades made the hardwood floors look tired by comparison.

So Joseph Savata called three refinishing companies from servicemagic for bids. Several factors were important. Savata wanted as little disruption as possible, because he operates a data-processing company from home. And the Savatas were passionate about finding just the right color for their living-room, dining-room and kitchen floors.

"We're kind of picky," Savata says he told potential hires. "If that's a problem, let us know." To Derek Bowles, owner of Floors by Derek, pickiness wasn't an issue but a challenge. The Savatas chose him for the project—despite his bid being the most expensive—for two reasons. First, Bowles had 20 years of experience to prove he could do the job right. And second, he owns a state-of-the-art dust-containment system that keeps houses free of airborne wood dust, a known carcinogen, during sanding.

"To be the best, you have to have the best," Bowles says. Bowles employs two work crews. He does some of the sanding and staining himself, keeping a careful eye on quality. "I do the work," Bowles says. "I'm checking on it."

The trickiest part of the Savata job was finding just the right stain to go with the black-and-brown swirls of the granite countertops, the family's new stainless-steel refrigerator, and the new stairs. The stairs were pre-finished at the factory with a UV inhibitor.

"It was a tough color to match," Bowles says.

But Bowles painstakingly spread tiny patches of stain on the hardwood so the Savatas could decide which color looked best. It took four or five attempts to find just the right one.

"[Derek] had to be patient," Joseph Savata says. "He might have thought it looked good, but we had to say it looked good."

Now that the floor is finished—the job took just three days—the Savata's two children are bustling across it again, chasing their rat terrier Jeter and wondering when dinner will be ready.

Joseph Savata says he'd recommend Floors by Derek to others: "They were on time. They finished when they said they would. It worked out well."