May 2008 Archives

A well known tax free haven in Nashua New Hampshire is home to a iFLOOR location to allow customers from near and far to pick up product there without taxes.

It is a common thing for Boston area residents to pop up to the Daniel Webster highway to pick up products, especially big ticket items, in that retail mecca in Nashua.

We found a cool location behind the Lazy Boy to give folks a convenient pick up point, but kept the rent really inexpensive to maintain our high value proposition.

If you are near check it out(but bring a map). Here are some photos:

Flooring has a new name in Naperville with the recent iFLOOR store opening there. We have customer routinely surprised at the values they find at iFLOOR everyday. The total package of high quality product, installation professionals and high energy service minded iFLOOR folks to help out their local communities is what is winning in each area. Here are some photos from a recent visit to that store.

Part of a recent journey through the Midwest included a stop in Palatine, Illinois among other Chicagoland stores.

Here are some photos from this stop at Palatine:

Every so often brands "refresh" their line up and right now Pergo is no exception.

There is a large amount of change coming in the pergo line up.

If you have been shopping for pergo and getting set on certain styles or patterns now would be a good time to capture the inventory before it is either reformatted or discontinued.

Although I don't fully understand some of the changes, in some ways they are perplexing, it is not uncommon for this to happen over the course of time.

Just wanted to share a quick heads up for those looking at the Pergo laminate brand.

We had a nice visit recently at the Danvers iFLOOR store. Great people really engaged and getting the local community dialed in.

Here are some photos I snapped while there:

Our talented in-house designers worked a number of years ago with a manufacturer to invent a new category of flooring. The emergence of this category came from alot of research that pointed us towards two key insights:

1. Hand scraped flooring is hot and fashionable
2. Bamboo is an emerging trend and can have a very eco-friendly story when done right. remember that no all bamboo is created or made in a green way.

It turned into a reese's peanut butter cup kind of story. One day we said, hey what if you put those two trends together?

Ming Dynasty is a true original from a expert craftsman who originally designed and handcrafted the line.

There is no doubt that the colors and styles were so good they were copied by just about every mill that we visit in China. If they make bamboo not only have they copied the look and stain colors, but often they copied the color names as well. Watch out for imitators. The knock offs don't always hold up to the originals.

That is a ringing endorsement to the original team that designed the unique invention of hand scraped bamboo. (CLICK TO SEE MY FAVORITE HANDSCRAPED BAMBOO AT THE MOMENT.)

The good news for flooring enthusiasts is that there are a couple ideas in the hopper that will be the next generation of things to copy by those who cannot create something unique!

Anyone who has been in or around Chicago for a long period of time can tell you a tale about a sandwich place so cool, so groovy - you're not really sure if you are cool enough to fit in. However, in a quest for a $4.00 awesome sandwich I decided to take the risk anyway.

Potbelly Sandwich Works is awesome. I love their food, logo, look, feel - they are cool.

If you are ever in Chicago check them out. You won't be disappointed.

Houston was in full motion Thursday lead by a capable leadership team.

There's very little more fun that to load out a car or truck with flooring products! (Yes, i have a weird sense of what fun can be I suppose.)

Anyway - here are some of the stars of the show in action:

The best value DIY kit for flooring every created is the delexue home install kit. the parts in there are worth 2 times more than the price of the kit.

Although they won't last forever, it is a great great value.

Here is a picture of it all laid out thanks to the Danvers iFLOOR store:

If you asked most flooring gurus I think they would generally agree that the most popular selling hardwood species over the last 100 years is red oak.

Red Oak Hardwood flooring remains a classic hardwood look. I believe that some people remember this style from their youth growing up in a home with oak flooring, others are drawn to the light color tone, yet adequate graining to help hide the little things that end up in a floor. I am not really sure what continues to drive this incredible look, but I do think it continues on a great run.

Recently exotic hardwoods have gained some market share, however, as more and more comes to light about harvesting techniques (or lack of oversight) I can predict now that the tropical timber act will have a huge impact on the exotic species that are being imported in the last quarter of this year.

That means that Red Oak in it's many forms will once again dominate. My favorite value is the exdura 5" red oak. Ohh baby. That is nice flooring!

After all my travels I have been under the weather(yes I took tons of preventative stuff) and lost my voice even for a couple days. I guess that's what I get for talking to much.

I wanted to make a quick point about the world of hardwood. Recently I met with one of the leading minds in the Hardwood industry and we were both commenting about how the new engineered woods were really very tough and that often customers get confused that a "solid" wood floor is the best. (men typically have this disability) There is alot more to what the best floor is for you than the method of construction.

But I had a small epiphany that day. The reality is a 2mm top layer is sufficient from a look and durability perspective AND is typically much more earth friendly than thicker options.

All of the sub layers of the hardwood floor which, when engineered properly, present a well balanced floor are also most often farmed trees. That basically means they are more sustainable.

So for those looking at green options you do have a solid hardwood like Exdura which is a sustainable certified Appalachian grown wood or you can look at the leaders like Saso which operate a FSC certified plant in Malaysia. Although there is not a complete FSC certification on the individual species yet they are hard at work getting that ground work laid.

Anyway its hard to keep up. I will try to post soon.

I had a great week last week traveling to all stores in California. Having a really cool flooring source in local communities in California like Los Angeles, Stanton (by Anaheim - close to Disneyland!), San Francisco, Hayward, Concord, Sacramento and Rocklin is something the dedicated folks at iFLOOR can be proud of.

It was a fast tour, but seeing all of those stores as well as 5 more in Washington made last week a busy week. We saw Everett, Bellevue, Seattle, Tacoma and of course Tukwila (aka Southcenter)

Great passion, great people!

This week Chicago, Bensenville, Naperville, Tinley Park, Palatine, West Roxbury, Danvers, Nashua and Seekonk! Another busy week.

Hard to post with all that flying! I will do my best this next week.

Although I don't have time to demonstrate the full process I wanted to include some photos from a nice bamboo mill in the Shanghai area to illustrate a modern method of bamboo production.

It's always fun to goto Europe and explore different cultures. I love to see old buildings and think of the past.

One thing I found interesting on a trip this past year and something I have seen a number of times is that if there is something in your way you move it.

For example the narrow streets are often difficult to navigate with a tiny car let alone a bus. Below We captured a few shots of the bus driver and a couple passengers (and a driver from a car going the opposite way) all getting together and moving the car out of the way.

Good times.

On my recent trip to Melbourne Florida I came face to face with a wild animal. Ok maybe not wild. (if you knew Josh you would say, yes - wild.)

Anyway - also in the building were a couple chameleons that Justin and the gang keep on hand to show kids. Amazingly sometimes kids get bored when their parents shop for flooring so this can be a welcome distraction.

Justin obviously has great knowledge and understanding about these creatures and takes excellent care of them. In the extended entry I have added some notes from Justin about the behaviors of these animals.

Anyway just wanted to share this interesting side note from my trip to Florida! I know the kids that go into that store are in for a treat.

No lizards were harmed during this blog entry. Having fun with floors!

I had the opportunity recently to fly into beautiful Denver Colorado to see the iFLOOR store there and had a great visit. What a tremendous team!

It was awesome to see the store and see what makes that such a successful store(hint: the people).

Ironically when I checked the weather it said to prepare for snow, but when I got there it was like 70 degrees and sunny. It was nice! (I hear the day before and the day after both had snow showers!)

Here are a couple photos I snapped. I am traveling a lot so entries are hard right now.