SMITH ARTISAN FLOORS CRAFTS INTERNAIONAL BUSINESS FROM THE GROUND UP
Smith Artisan Floors
618-267-4354
smithhardwoodfloor@gmail.com
Owner Joe Smith has managed to take Smith Artisan Floors from his home garage in Centralia to each side of the country and numerous points in between.
The hardwood flooring business has taken Smith and his employees as far west as Oregon, as far east as South Carolina, and as far south as Texas.
“We install, repair and refinish hardwood floors. That extends to everything from new construction and new wood to very old wood,” said Smith. “We also do hand-cut medallions, inlays and border work, and pattern floors. We specialize in the European finishes as well as the American waterborne finishes.”
“I will be home for months at a time and then I’ll be gone for a month. We drive to each job because we have a very specialized tool set that has to come with us. My kids are at the age now where they can travel with me to some of the smaller jobs and get that real-world experience of how things are built and come to be.”
Smith Artisan Floors has also become a prolific force in the not-for-profit Fischer House Foundation, which builds three-story, 16-bedrooom, multi-family facilities near VA medical campuses for the families of wounded veterans.
“Their goal is to have one of these facilities at every major VA medical campus in the country. [Residents] apply and stay free of charge near [their loved one’s] medical center, saving them thousands a trip. The foundation spares no expense,” Smith explained. “We just finished a job in Chicago, which was the 100th Fischer House built, and we are pretty proud of that. It was our 14th. Coming up we have Little Rock, Arkansas, Atlanta, Georgia, and there’s always Puerto Rico. They are still trying to figure out how to build one there.”
Yet despite its portfolio of out-of-state work, Smith insisted Smith Artisan Floors is and always will be a Centralia business.
“We do a lot of work in the greater Centralia area,” Smith advised. “We just restored all of the hardwood flooring in the hold Irving School that Kaskaskia Special Ed District has taken over. The floors were in significant disrepair. We were there for a month and its all beautiful now. The maple is just glowing.”
Smith also has designs on Smith Artisan Floors becoming a true community resource, saying he hopes to make expansions in the future that will benefit the area.
“One of the things I would really like to do is make a small showroom and a dedicated workshop,” said Smith. “In the showroom I would also like to incorporate local art from Kaskaskia College and the Cultural Society and places like that and have open art nights where individuals can come into our facility, but also see these great local artists and what they’re doing.”
“I’d like it to be sort of a cultural hub, in that our parking lot would always be available for food trucks, or kickoffs of 5ks, things like that. We want to be a community resource.”
Smith, a Centralia native, said he began working on homes almost his entire life.
“A lot of what I do is self-taught. My father is a retired blacksmith, and mother was a social worker, but she was a carpenter by hobby,” Smith said. “I grew up in a family that was constantly creating and building things. I have been working in homes in one stage of construction or another since I was 10 years old. It’s just always been interesting to me.”
After returning home from Colorado in the mid-2010s, Smith said he decided to take a stab at creating his own business.
“When I came back home I went into the outdoor industry for a short amount of time bu then when I got engaged and we realized we were going to have a kiddo, I knew I needed to find something more stable for the family,” Smith recalled. “I quit my job and bought all of the tools I could get for $850. I had a Ford Ranger for transportation, and it just kind of went from there.”
“We took small jobs that we knew we could complete and do well and we just grew at the speed of cash and word out of mouth,” Smith continued. “We had some scary times for sure. It was an ebb and flow, but we are very fortunate.”
Through consistent and reliable work, and, according to Smith, a little bit of luck, Smith Artisan Floors began taking jobs out of the region and eventually out of the state, growing into the international commodity it is today.
Smith Artisan Floors has been a member of the Centralia Chamber of Commerce for several years and can be seen at the upcoming Centralia Home and Community Expo on March 29-30, 2025.
