Our story
A Polish craftsman, a Phoenix showroom, and one material.
Olympic Hardwood Flooring has been family-owned since 2012. Before that there were twenty years of learning the trade from both ends - and before that, a student in Chicago sweeping up in a flooring store because it was the job he could get.
How Rafal got here
Rafal Nalej was born and raised in Poland and came to the United States as a young student, studying at the Ort Technical Institute in Chicago. He had almost no money, so he worked his way through school at a small local flooring store.
That is where the whole thing started - not as a business plan, but because he found the work genuinely interesting.
In 2004 he moved to the Valley of the Sun and kept learning the trade from both ends. Retail, where you find out what customers actually want and what they are afraid of. Wholesale, where you find out how the product is really made and what the difference between two manufacturers means once the floor is down. Eight years of that.
In 2012 he opened Olympic Hardwood Flooring: a small boutique business taking projects of any size and any budget. It has stayed family-owned ever since, and Rafal still shows up daily while a job is running and does the final walk-through himself.
Rafal is a rare breed in this business and I cannot recommend him or his team any higher.
Steve O.
Why only hardwood
Most flooring companies in Phoenix sell everything: tile, carpet, laminate, vinyl, wood. It is a reasonable way to run a business, and it means nobody in the building is an expert in any of it.
We went the other way. Hardwood is the only material we sell, install, sand and refinish - which means when you ask why one engineered board costs twice what another does, or whether your existing floor can take another sanding, or what happens to a wide plank floor on a slab that was not prepped properly, you get an answer from someone who has done it several hundred times.
It also means we will tell you when hardwood is not the right call. There are rooms where it is not, and we would rather say so than sell you a floor that fails.
The old version of this website put it more bluntly: we sell the floor that matches your home and how you live in it, not what happens to be overstocked or on promotion. That has not changed.
The way we work
Our clients are as different from each other as their houses are, so the process starts with listening rather than showing.
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The phone call
What species, color, texture and finish you are drawn to. Which rooms it is going in. When you would ideally like it started and finished. And if you can, photos by email of those rooms and the furniture in them - so the samples we bring are chosen against your actual house rather than at random.
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The in-home appointment
Accurate field measurements, and a visual inspection that finds the things which decide the real price: whether the slab needs preparation before it can accept wood, how the baseboards should be handled, and how the floor should meet the carpet, tile or stone next to it.
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As much time as you need
We know the manufacturers and the products, so we do the searching for you instead of sending you round the Valley hoping to stumble on it. Clients regularly write that they were never pressured and that nobody followed them around the showroom. That is deliberate.
What we are proudest of
In 2023 a couple midway through a whole-house remodel had to fire their original flooring company for shoddy work. We took the job over at the floor-levelling stage, re-levelled the whole house, and completed the wood flooring and baseboards on a schedule that had already been wrecked by somebody else.
Their review is on the reviews page, and it is the one we would point at first.
The people you'll actually deal with
Clients name them in reviews, which tells you something. Kelly and Michaela in the showroom, patient with people who need three visits to decide. Install crews led by Eric, with Leo, Chris and Buddha named repeatedly for work described as "impeccable, flawless and detailed."
Names under the second and third portraits still need confirming with Rafal.
Where we've been seen, and what we give back
On television and in print
Olympic Hardwood has been profiled several times on CW6's HomeHQ program - on choosing the right floor product, on the installation process, on flooring and design, and on a tour of the showroom - and featured in Life In The Biltmore magazine.
Giving back
Because of how the company started, Olympic has always put a percentage of profits into local causes. Phoenix Children's Hospital among them, and Polish-American community and heritage work.
It is not a marketing program. It is a habit that predates the showroom.
- Family-owned
- Since 2012In the Valley since 2004
- Google rating
- 4.9 averageAcross two decades of clients
- BBB
- A+ ratingAccredited since 2017
- Best of Houzz
- For Service, four timesVoted by clients, not by us
We work across the Valley: Phoenix, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Arcadia, Peoria, Glendale, Chandler, Tempe, Cave Creek, Fountain Hills and beyond. Showroom at 10801 N 24th Ave, Suite 112, Phoenix AZ 85029, Mon-Fri 9 AM-3 PM. Call or text (602) 535-1214.
Start with a conversation.
Tell us the rooms and what's on the floor now. You will get an answer from somebody who has done it several hundred times, whether or not you buy anything from us.