It isn’t often that something in our industry goes viral, but a decade ago, that was the case with this stunning 2015 Wood Floor of the Year winner from Real Antique Wood owners Gary and Lisa Horvath, and then-employee, now part-owner, Anthony Saraceno. What originally started out as a unique installation for a former client’s foyer turned into a stunning and challenging staircase that took social media by storm.
The entry, which took the prize in the Best Limited Species and Members’ Choice categories, features black walnut live edge slabs cut from a single tree that fell during Hurricane Irene in 2011. The wood sat in the Horvaths’ family room for three years until the perfect project came along.
“We had a repeat customer who reached out and said he wanted a unique floor,” says Saraceno. “He had an inkling of an idea that he wanted a live-edge floor. As it turns out, Gary and Lisa had the perfect material stacked behind their couch.”
The slabs, which measured about 24” at their widest, tapered off to about 14” and averaged about 18’ long. “The fortunate/unfortunate part,” says Saraceno, “is that the slabs were cut to about 1” thick. Unfortunate because we couldn’t use them to make tables or desks, but fortunate because they were perfect to use for 3/4” flooring.”
While Gary Horvath focused on the foyer installation, Saraceno focused on the staircase. He spent about four days in the shop prefabricating the treads and the risers, and about 140 hours on the jobsite meticulously measuring and remeasuring before making any cuts. “I marked each component five or six times before I made a single cut,” he says. He’d start with the riser, then the bullnose, and then the tread. “There wasn’t much room for error, so I had countless hours of mental mechanics to make it work.”
Once all the slabs were in place, they created a custom filler using 3M epoxy, coffee grounds, Glitsa wood flour cement, and ground-up bark and sawdust from the slabs. “We created what we called a saw dust slurry,” says Saraceno, “our own custom blend for this one-of-a-kind floor.” They trowel-filled the voids several times, using a finer blend with each subsequent round of filler.
When the project was done, Saraceno’s brother, Chris, photographed the results. Says Saraceno, “If we only knew then what we know now, I’d have strapped a camera to my head and filmed the whole thing.”
Not long after the project was completed, it was posted to the company’s Facebook page. Overnight, the post had more than 10,000 views. A few weeks later, it had more than a million. Today? “It’s somewhere around 8 million, give or take,” says Saraceno. “It has been 10 years, and it’s still getting attention. It’s just crazy.”
Today, the company focuses on all types of projects using antique wood: floors, walls, furniture, fireplace mantels, and shelves, to name just a few. “If it’s made out of wood, and it’s old wood, I want to make it,” he says. He has left his mark on the NWFA as well, as the designer and builder of the custom live-edge walnut table that greets all visitors at the NWFA’s headquarters in St. Louis.
When asked about his journey within the industry, he laughs, “I’m the kind of guy who could only pass gym and woodshop in school, so to think that I get to work with my hands every day creating beautiful things with wood just blows my mind. I started with Gary and Lisa when I was 23 and was working three jobs. The business has snowballed since then. Just a decade-and-a-half later, I’m a part-owner and love what I do every single day.”
Abrasive: 3M
Adhesive: Sika
Buffer, Edger: American Sanders
Filler: Glitsa
Finish: Bona
Moisture Meter: Lignomat
Nailer: Bostitch
Saws: Dewalt
Such a cool floor!