Robert Peterson, Owner of Custom Finish Wood Flooring.

The first thing you notice when you visit Custom Finish Wood Flooring’s website is the multitude of five-star reviews and glowing testimonials about the expertise, service and professionalism of owner Robert Peterson and his crew—and that comes as no surprise.

Robert initially started doing hardwood flooring in the summer of 1997 after many years of learning the industry working with his older brother, Jamie. Later, he partnered up with his twin brother, Eddie, from whom he bought Wisconsin-based Custom Finish Wood Flooring (established in 2006) in 2010.

The company primarily works on residential and commercial wood floors, installing engineered, pre-finished, raw, wide-planked, hand-scraped or distressed flooring, medallions and borders. The experienced team specializes in sanding and custom staining to match almost any color of new or preexisting wood floors, and uses only top-of-the-line flooring products, such as Bona and Glitsa. Of note, Custom Finish Wood Flooring won Flooring Contractor of the Year awards in both 2020 and 2021.

Perhaps the biggest differentiator for Custom Finish Wood Flooring, though, is its recent patent (Invention #10,501,943) that consists of pre-sanded wood flooring—a transformative product now available across the country. In 2020 and 2021, this patent qualified to be nominated for The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (NMTI), which is the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement, bestowed by the President of the United States on America’s leading innovators.

Robert says, “Letters have been written and submitted by the July 30th deadline, so now we’ll see if we win! There are so many issues in the building industry where you literally pay more money for raw/unfinished wood flooring than the same wood pre-finished with stain and finish. Our patent can easily be used by anyone in the arts for faster and less expensive on-site finishing because we’ve innovated prior arts using the same mechanisms, which are my intellectual property.”

The patent is granted by United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8, which grants Congress the power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

Robert elaborates, adding, “Patent law is designed to encourage inventors to disclose their new technology to the world by offering the incentive of a limited-time monopoly on the technology. In our case, this gives us the ability to keep the cost of unfinished wood to less than pre-finished—like it should be.”

Game-Changing Industry Innovation

Robert explains, “Custom Finish Wood Flooring has re-innovated the flooring industry with our unique methodology of installing pre-sanded wood products—saving time and allowing for easy touch-ups without the hassle and expense of moving furniture and re-sanding the entire floor. Plus, you’ll never hear that the product is ‘unavailable’ like you do with pre-finished and all other flooring materials. There are no large sanders required. This wood is ready to be installed because it’s already pre-sanded for you. It’s great for individual contractors and mills alike. Bottom line, our process is faster, greener and more cost-effective.”

Design options are virtually limitless. Customers can purchase square edge, micro-bevel, hand scraped edges, eased edges, all kinds of distressing, hand-scraped, wire-brushed, saw blade marks, even barn wood. Robert notes, “My micro-bevel/eased edge, for example, costs the same as your typical square edge that you have to fully sand.” He adds, “This product eliminates the stress of edger swirls, chatter and halos around edges. This is by far the easiest way of doing on-site finishing and custom projects.”

Craftsmanship and a Passion for Perfection

With a passion for making people’s hardwood flooring dreams come true and boasting “the greenest floor you can get,” Custom Finish Wood Flooring’s first objective, Robert explains, is customer satisfaction by using the best quality products, and providing excellent reliability and unmatched professionalism. He says, “We are singularly dedicated to making our customers happy. We strive to get the best pricing with an exceptional result for all of our customers. And now, with this patented process, that high level of quality can be achieved nationwide.”