R.C. McKinnon Floors LLC

Wood floors are the whole business at R.C. McKinnon Floors — installing them, repairing them, sanding and refinishing them for people's houses. R.C. McKinnon says he trained with his father and associates before starting his own company in 1978, and the site puts the business at 48 years and calls wood flooring a family tradition. The shop runs out of a Hyde Park office with a second office in Kennebunkport, Maine, and the service area it lists stretches accordingly: Boston, Milton, Brookline, Newton, Needham and Wellesley, out through Weston, Cambridge, Waltham, Belmont and Arlington, then north to Portsmouth and Portland. For a floor job and nothing else — refinishing a hardwood that has gone dull, repairing a damaged section, a fresh install — this is a specialist rather than a general remodeler. Ask for a certificate of insurance, get the finish and the full scope written into the estimate, and ask for two or three recent local references before the sanders come out.