News
Bamboo Flooring – Get With It People
Too often generalizations about products become the “fact” about those products. Bamboo flooring as a category has generally good characteristics like being fast growing and therefore sustainable as well as being flexible to apply colors and styles to the flooring like staining and hand scraping. However, due to the overall market not being very knowledgeable about bamboo the general understand of bamboo floors are too often limited to the 4 basic skus. Horizontal Carbonized, Horizontal Natural, Vertical Carbonized and Vertical Natural....
read moreVinyl Flooring – A Revolution?
Vinyl flooring was one of the most common floors used in Europe and North America during the 1950′s-2000. Alot of people may recall the term “no-wax” vinyl flooring which is what virtually all of today’s vinyl floors are made as. The reason the term “no-wax” was a marketing tool is because from the late 1800′s-1940′s linoleum was the most widely available resilient flooring option for most. Linoleum is cool in it’s own way, but requires waxing and or polishing on a regular basis. It is also easier to stain. With...
read moreMain Mistakes When Buying Flooring
Buying flooring is not something people do everyday, in fact it is a process that folks tend to avoid until they absolutely have to deal with it. Because of the lack of frequency there are some basic aspects to floor shopping that seems to catch people by surprise. Worse yet, there are some common mistakes that create for unfavorable flooring experiences both during the shopping process and for years to come as they look at the flooring that didn’t measure up to what they thought they were getting. Here are the top 3 mistakes people...
read moreHow To Destroy A Brand New Floor
Thousands of floors are sold everyday, yet seldom does the topic of what is the biggest killer of new flooring come up. Why not? 1. Flooring buyers are not in a position to ask questions about a topic in which they are not experts therefore there is no line of questioning that may surface this topic. 2. Many flooring merchants are not in the business of bringing up deal breaking topics, despite the fact that if they surfaced this issue before the sale they would have more happy customers long term. The best sales people with a long term...
read moreWhy Is The Cost Of Different Cork Patterns So Different?
Cork flooring has really established itself as a standalone flooring category in the past 10 years. Before that cork was a small niche inside of the hardwood category that few consumer knew about and only very fashion conscious designers and architects really embraced it’s unique look and durability. From the late 1800’s – the late 1900’s cork was mostly a 12” x 12” glue down tile that did not have a finish applied to it. Architects and designers would specify this type of flooring in the most demanding commercial flooring...
read moreTongue & Groove Flooring Is Still Groovy
Tongue and groove flooring has been around for well over 100 years(some say centuries) and it is still strong today. It may be very interesting that a very ancient technique is still being used every day in flooring projects. Although the traditional tongue and groove has a more modern competitor from a click tongue and groove which doesn’t require nails or a glue down installation process the “old school” tongue and groove is still most often used in hardwood flooring. ¾” Solid hardwood flooring especially is dominated by traditional...
read moreRed Oak Is Playing Hard To Get
For over one year now getting solid red oak has been a big challenge for consumers, builders, contractors and even hardwood experts in furniture and flooring industries. Why is Red Oak playing hard to get? The simple reason that this floor is so difficult to find is because the supply of the lumber has dried up to almost nothing. Because the furniture category has been devastated by the sharp cuts in consumer discretionary spending the demand for the higher grade veneers and solid wood components disappeared. In the lumber business it is...
read moreVinyl Flooring Surging
People have been making their way back to vinyl floor covering in a very significant way. All forms of vinyl planking also known as luxury vinyl tile are making market share advances. However, there is a big gotcha that people need to be aware of. Just because the term vinyl is used does not mean it is all the same quality. There are massive differences in the top coating and it’s long term durability. Too often people make assumptions about vinyl based on their past experience. Brands like Armstrong, Mannington and Tarkett made vinyl so...
read moreBrand Name Floors – Are They Worth It?
The idea of buying brand name flooring has often been discussed here on this blog and elsewhere as well. The real question at the heart of that idea remains: Is buying the brand name worth the extra money? In the flooring market there are some industry brand names, but most end users especially consumers are not aware of brand names. Very few consumers without being prompted can name one or more brand names of flooring. When asked about a name like Armstrong, Mohawk or Pergo some people will have an awareness of those names, but not...
read moreFurniture & Flooring Are Closely Related
Flooring and furniture go together like peas and carrots to quote Forest Gump. In fact flooring rarely is alone in a room it is surround by furnishings of all kinds. Lately furniture has been getting absolutely hammered by the recession. Industry insiders often lament that the category is down 50%, some even say 70%, from it’s peak time. Of course the peak was driven by an unsustainable bubble, but it certainly has been a struggle for the furniture business. Today more and more furniture is becoming something that is both affordable...
read more