Hardwood Floors December 2019/January 2020

By Emily Morrow Finkell

story to tell and harder than ever before because everyone is programed for short bursts of information. With the endless barrage of digital impressions, it is not only hard to get someone’s attention; it’s even harder to hold it. As an interior designer who has felt pinches over a lifetime of working, my opinion is that we have some sweet spots to focus on that could provide short- and longer-term results. Designers are not an easy relationship because you need to speak their language. One of their languages is “aesthetics” and hardwood flooring is beautiful, natural, and long-lasting. Designers are also very social creatures, posting on social media and influencing a large number of consumers who rely on their expertise. Hardwood should not be a “stretch” for us to romanticize, because it does come in a wide variety of colors, species, and finishes fromwhich to choose. One of our big challenges that I’ve written about recently has to do with living in a “flat world” where everything is reduced to a digital image, making all the products “seem equal” when they are nothing of the sort. In the flat world, consumers come to falsely

assume that everything in the “wood world” is clean, flat, perfect, and easy, just like they see on Pinterest and Instagram. It’s easy to feel the substantial nature of wood…to hold it or to walk on it is a kinesthetic learning experience. How do you encapsulate the beauty and essence of hardwood flooring in a short byte? A picture is worth a thousand words and many of the room scenes I see are not aspirational. And, the models featured in the rooms might not be projecting the right image of what we should be conveying about the brand. We only have nanoseconds to make a positive or negative impression…or worse, we aren’t noticed at all. Whose attention do you seek? My suggestion is that you look to the designers to learn and grow. Pay attention to them, find out what it is they are specifying. They specify $77.95 billion dollars worth of products annually. Of that, flooring is $8.18 billion dollars and 88 percent of the designers are specifying hard surface flooring. Not bad for a group of professionals who totaled 69,222 in 2017 working in businesses numbering at

ULC LEVEL-SEAL 500

Flexibility: the quality of bending

easily without breaking. Who knew a floor leveling compound could do this ? Stauf’s ULC-500 Level-Seal is a revolutionary product that provides solutions to many common problems associated with floor leveling and moisture mitigation. Its unique characteristics are that the product is pour in place, self-leveling, ultra-adherent, and provides moisture mitigation of up to 18#’s CC or 97%RH. ULC-500 remains flexible throughout its lifetime, providing resilience under foot, and impact resistance. It’s also capable of spanning cracks that may arise in cementitious slab constructions. Flexibility is a desirable attribute. Why not demand it in your floor leveling compound? Stick with what works.

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www.staufusa.com 866.GLUEUSA