Hello visitors! This is my story on how I chose my floor for my home as a flooring specialist.
My name is Ashley and I have been working in the flooring industry for over 7 years. I came into this industry at the entry of the luxury vinyl plank flooring boom. We here at Nice Floors were very early adopters in the belief of the waterproof luxury vinyl plank, particularly COREtec, and knew it would change the industry.
Through the years I have discussed various flooring applications with customers from solid wood, engineered wood, laminate, WPC luxury vinyl plank, SPC luxury vinyl plank, carpet tiles, carpet rolls, and some other new types of products that just didn’t really take off. Whenever someone came to me discussing their desire for a low maintenance floor, waterproof, scratch resistant, particulary mentioning Kids and Pets, I would say “You need Luxury Vinyl Plank!”
Flash forward to the last couple of years. As you can imagine, I see hundreds of styles of flooring almost every day and month and I am constantly “Shopping”. I’ve been looking at engineered wood, engineered wood, engineered wood most of the time to install into my main living areas. But as I’ve continued to discuss best applications of flooring with customers every day, particularly those with small children (my boys are 2 and 4) and dogs (I have a basset hound) and like low maintenance living (less is more!) I finally thought, what am I doing?? I need Luxury Vinyl Plank!
Now my home style is very “Chip and Jo”, black and white, farmhouse but not like cows and chickens everywhere. I like rustic and shabby chic furniture and finishings, but I did not want a super distressed or scratched up floor. (I like to change out the furnishings around the staples of the home to adapt my style.) I wanted a more traditional color which was surprisingly hard to find! (I’ve talked to all of our manufacturers about this. I expect more options to come soon). After going back and forth to try and decide brand, style and color, I settled on this: Pergo Extreme Cinnamon Brulee
It’s 10″ wide boards so there is a little bit of “flair” there that is different from a completely traditional look, and the boards are 6′ long. It impressed me with its durability from the videos and demos we’ve seen. I also laid out several boards in my living area and my kids were abusive to it- with boys everything is a sword, and every surface a chopping block, and there was not a single sign it had been touched. This is an SPC or Rigid Core flooring so it is less “dentable” then WPC viny plank. With any floor I know we have to live in the real world and scratches do happen even on scratch resistant floors- but this showed me it meant business!
We are going to go through the process in phases. We are first going to tear out the entire upstairs of carpet (3 bedrooms and a hallway) because of my kids’ allergies. We plan to do the main living areas (along with a kitchen remodel) next spring and summer. We are excited about the transformation our home is about to make and I am so excited about how this is going to look! Follow along as we tear out the carpet, lay down the floor and live on it!
Stay tuned!
