The Floorman
Andy Harman has spent forty-five years on Long Island floors.
He founded The Floorman of Islip and still runs it. Four and a half decades in one trade, in one place, doing one thing properly.
Forty-five years is long enough to have worked through several generations of materials, finishes, and equipment, and to have formed opinions about all of them. It shows up in the ordinary moments of a job: knowing at a glance how much life is left in a floor, knowing when a section can be saved and when it has to come out, knowing which stain will look right in a room once the sun moves across it.
Houses, businesses, and schools
Most of the work is residential — Nassau and Suffolk houses, room by room and floor by floor. Alongside that runs a steady line of commercial and institutional work, including school buildings, where the floor has to take a different kind of use and the job has to fit a calendar that belongs to somebody else.
Those are three different problems wearing the same material. A living room, a busy entrance, and a school corridor each ask something different of a floor, and the answer starts with looking at the space and understanding how it gets used.
The kind of contractor people pass along
A trade this old runs on reputation, and Andy’s travels ahead of him. Customers bring him back for the next room, and the one after that — one has had four rooms done over three years. Others hand his number to friends, who hand it on again. Business owners who have worked with him say the same thing in different words: he is the real deal.
That reputation is built on something specific. He shows up, he explains the work, he does what he said he would do, and he stands behind it afterward.
How a job starts
It starts with Andy coming out to look at the floor. He walks the space, reads what the wood will take, and talks it through with you before quoting anything. Customers who collected several estimates describe him as the one who sat down and explained what the floor actually needed and why — including the times when the answer was less work rather than more.
The price comes in writing, after the visit. What you agree to is what you pay: customers note that moderate surprises during a job have not turned into upcharges.
The crew
Andy stays involved in every job from the estimate through the final coat, and his crew has been with him long enough that customers thank them by name in reviews — Michael’s workmanship gets called out specifically. That continuity is the reason the standard holds across jobs he is not personally standing on.
What stays the same on every job
Dust-free sanding and a low-fume finish, so the house stays livable while the work goes on. Anything that could be damaged gets protected first, and furniture gets moved and put back. Rooms are left clean. If something needs a second look afterward, he comes back and takes care of it.
Tell us about your floor.
Andy comes out, looks at it, and gives you a written price.