Hardwood Floors June/July 2026

Throwback Wood Floor of the Year

PERFECTION Pallet

By Anita Howard

The saying that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is inspiration brought to life with this 2013 Wood Floor of the Year winner. The floor is the creation of Greg Schenck, president of Schenck and Company in Houston, Texas. The floor earned the prize in the Best Reclaimed category. What makes it truly unique, however, is that the wood used to create it was reclaimed from old pallets. “I always have been interested in recycling and repurposing things,” says Schenck, “and it just hit me that there are a whole lot of pallets out there.” He thought that if they could be used to make furniture, why not wood floors? Then he remembered a ceiling he had seen in a West Texas hotel bar. “It was made using large wooden beams,” he explains, “with small strips of wood laid between the beams. I was just sitting there, staring at it, and I thought, ‘That could be a cool floor.’” That’s when inspiration struck. He knew pallets could be the perfect wood for a one-of-a kind floor. All he had to do was sell it. That opportunity came twice for the same client. He shares that the first project was a smaller one, about 500 square feet, in a small study in the client’s Houston home. “They wanted something rustic and unique, and they fell in love with the sample we provided,” he says. “Years later, they were building a ranch house and wanted the same floor on a larger scale. That one was about 2,500 square feet, and included a unique staircase as well.” That second floor won the 2013 Wood Floor of the Year Best Reclaimed prize.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GREG SCHENCK | SCHENCK AND COMPANY

lengths, so we had to make it interesting. We knew this was a pattern very few had seen before.” Schenck recognizes that this floor is different from typical Wood Floor of the Year entries, which is what inspired him to pursue it. “We tend to not fit the algorithms,” he says, “but if we’ve got a cool project, and I can get photos, I will submit it just to be a renegade. This floor shows that, sometimes, cool things can be done that just don’t fit the norm.”

Schenck shares that working with pallet wood had its challenges. For one, the wood used to make pallets is entirely random. “There were different species, different widths, different thicknesses, everything was totally random,” he shared. Schenck and his team didn’t attempt to make the wood uniform in any way; they simply worked with what they had to celebrate the character of the wood, carefully denailing each board, removing sharp edges, and lightly screening the floor to remove splinters. Individual boards were planed down on the back side to address varying thickness issues, then glued down to a wood subfloor installed over a concrete slab. “The floor is smooth,” he shares, “but not flat.” By design, the beams are slightly thicker than the slats. “I knew a straight pattern would be boring with all those narrow, short

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