Arcadia Wood Flooring has spent more than 20 years on wood-flooring in Monrovia, and much of that work begins with a floor someone laid long before the current owner arrived. We sand, repair and refinish solid oak, fir and parquet, and we install new hardwood where an old floor truly cannot be saved. Our first question on any visit is what the floor is made of and how much wood remains above the tongue.
That question carries extra weight here, because a good share of the housing stock still sits on its original boards. An early floor that looks worn out is often solid wood hiding under gray finish, pet stains and decades of wax. Tearing it out for something new throws away material that cannot be bought today with the same grain, density or age.
So our visits follow a set order. We confirm the build year, test and document the floor before any machine runs, measure what the boards can take, and put a written room-by-room plan in front of you showing when furniture and people can return. Only then do we quote the work the floor actually needs, and nothing beyond it.
Prewar Floors in a City That Kept Its Early Houses
How many early houses are still standing
Census figures show how much of Monrovia predates the Second World War. The American Community Survey counts 2,484 of the city’s 14,855 housing units as built in 1939 or earlier, which is 16.7 percent of everything standing. Those are real houses with original floors, and many of them have never been fully stripped back to bare wood.
The city itself reaches back further than most. Monrovia incorporated in 1887 and grew from a sparse community of orange ranches into a residential city of more than 37,000 people by the 2020 census. Early Craftsman bungalows, Spanish Revival houses from the 1920s and 1930s, and Tudor Revival cottages near Old Town all show up on our schedule, each with its own flooring habits.
What is usually underneath
Floors in these houses are typically narrow oak strip or fir, nailed over a board subfloor on a raised foundation. From the crawl space we can often see the floor joists, the condition of the subfloor boards and any old plumbing leaks that stained the wood from below. That view tells us more about a soft spot or a sagging floor than the finished surface ever will.
The common problems are predictable once you have seen enough prewar floors. Nail pops and squeaks come from boards that have dried and loosened over many decades. Black water stains mark old sink or radiator leaks, and worn-through finish in hallways leaves gray boards that have soaked up dirt. Most of those conditions are repairable without removing the floor at all.
Why the city’s choices matter to yours
Monrovia did not leave these houses to chance. The city adopted a historic preservation ordinance in 1995, and preservation here has real structure behind it: landmark designations, a historic district, a property tax program and review of demolition requests. Owners of an early house live in a place that has already decided those buildings are worth keeping, and a restored original floor fits that decision.
Looking for wood-flooring closer to Vincent? See Vincent Wood-Flooring.
The Wildrose Tract, Landmarks and the Mills Act
One historic district
According to the Los Angeles Conservancy, the Wildrose Tract is the city’s one historic district. The ordinance set out the procedures for creating landmarks and districts, and the Historic Preservation Commission approves exterior changes to downtown buildings along Myrtle Avenue. Houses in and around the tract get the same approach from us as any floor with original material worth saving.
We do not tell owners what the city does or does not review inside a house, because that is the city’s call to make. If you own a landmarked home or a house in the district, contact the City of Monrovia Community Development Department before a project starts. Its Building and Safety Division on South Ivy Avenue answers permit questions for a specific address.
The Mills Act and landmarked homes
Monrovia offers the Mills Act property tax abatement program for landmarked homes, alongside incentives the Conservancy lists such as reduced permit fees and setback flexibility for one-story additions. Owners who pursue landmark status to reach that program have already signaled that original fabric matters to them. Our habit of repairing and refinishing before replacing fits that choice.
For those owners, our paperwork has value of its own. We photograph the floor before work begins, note which boards were replaced and where the new stock came from, and record the finish system we applied. That file is yours to keep with the rest of the house records, whether or not anyone ever asks to see it.
Demolition review and the long view
The Conservancy also reports that Monrovia reviews demolition requests for all pre-1940 structures and can place a 180-day hold on issuing demolition permits. For flooring, the practical meaning is simple: early houses here tend to stay standing, so their floors get lived on for another generation. Restoring a floor properly now saves the next owner from inheriting a patched surface.
Local interest runs deeper than city hall. The Monrovia Historic Preservation Group grew out of a 1980 meeting between two couples who owned early houses, and its first home tour on March 7, 1982, included five homes and the Anderson House Museum. Owners who restore floors in this city often have neighbors who notice the difference and ask who did the work.
Restoring an Early Floor Instead of Replacing It
Measuring what the wood can take
Before we promise a full sand, we pull a floor register or a threshold piece and look at the board edge. Solid oak strip usually has enough wood above the tongue for a careful sanding, but floors that have been sanded several times already may not. When the margin is thin, we recommend a buff and coat or a screen and recoat instead of risking sand-through.
Sanding a prewar floor also calls for a slower hand than a new one. Boards are often slightly cupped or crowned, and an aggressive drum sander pass leaves chatter marks, while a rushed edger leaves swirl along the walls. We step through an abrasive grit sequence, check the floor under raking light, and run dust containment so old finish residue stays out of the rest of the house.
Board replacement and weave-in repairs
Where pet urine stains or old leaks have gone through the wood, we cut out those boards and weave in replacements so the new pieces stagger with the old ones. A straight patch across a room reads like a scar, while a weave-in repair disappears after sanding and finishing. We match species and board width, and we look for reclaimed stock when the grain calls for it.
Loose parquet in early dining rooms and entries gets the same care. We reset lifting tiles, match any missing pieces, and only then put sanding on the calendar. If the adhesive underneath is black mastic or an old cutback adhesive, we identify it before anything is scraped, because that answer shapes the whole method for the room.
Finishes and stairs in an old house
Finish choices are limited to products legal to apply in the South Coast Air Quality Management District, where Rule 1113 sets the wood coatings limit at 275 grams per liter. Within that range, a waterborne polyurethane keeps oak close to its natural color, while an oil-modified product warms it toward the honey tone many early floors carried. We brush samples onto your own boards first.
Stairs in older two-story houses are priced by the tread, riser and nosing rather than rolled into a square-foot number. Original stair treads take more handwork than open floor, and a worn nosing may need a replacement piece shaped to match the profile. Pricing each part separately lets you see exactly what the staircase costs before you decide how far to take it.
Later Houses and Lead-Safe Work Before 1978
When the house came later
Plenty of Monrovia housing arrived after the prewar years. Of the same 14,855 units the census counts, 11.8 percent were built in 2000 or later, with every decade in between represented. Floors from those eras range from oak strip over a plywood subfloor to engineered hardwood glued to a slab, and each one gets its own assessment rather than a prewar playbook.
On an engineered floor, we measure the wear layer thickness before quoting a sanding. A thick veneer can be sanded much like solid wood, but a thin one can only take a screen and recoat. On wide plank floors, we take moisture meter readings and write them down before blaming the boards for seasonal gapping, since gaps often follow relative humidity rather than the installation.
The federal lead rule and early finishes
Census data places 70.1 percent of Monrovia housing units before 1980, and the federal line that matters for renovation is 1978. The EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule covers work that disturbs painted surfaces in pre-1978 housing, and old baseboards, shoe molding and stair risers in these houses can carry lead paint. That is why we confirm the build year before any sanding is booked.
On a house that falls under the rule, we set up containment, protect the rooms beyond the work area, and plan cleanup and verification as part of the job rather than an afterthought. Removing and resetting painted trim is the step most likely to disturb paint, so we call it out in the written scope. Households with young children should expect us to raise those questions at the first visit.
Seismic retrofits and floor timing
ZIP code 91016 appears on the 2025 Earthquake Brace + Bolt list for Southern California, and older raised-foundation houses are the usual candidates for foundation bolting and cripple wall bracing. If that retrofit is on your list, schedule it before the floors are refinished. Crawl space work can shake loose squeaks and nail pops, and it is easier to reset those boards once rather than twice.
Once the retrofit and the floor work are in the right order, we hand you a room-by-room schedule showing cure times, when rugs can go back down and when furniture can return. In an early house with few rooms to spare, that schedule is how a family keeps living at home while the floors are finished.
- 20+ Years on Wood Floors
- Room-by-Room Schedules
- Stairs Priced by the Step
