Armstrong’s Nature’s Gallery Exotics in Yorkshire Walnut

By Matthew Spieler
Hicksville, N.Y.—Fall is here and the leaves are changing from their summer greens to a myriad of colors. And just as trees change their looks for the new season so should retailers when it comes to their laminate product offerings.

Manufacturers have launched products specifically for this time of the year, designed to help dealers generate more sales while maintaining their profit margins.

Wood designs continue to be the hottest styles consumers want and mills have responded.

“Choosing among the colors and textures of woods sets the directions of the interior,” said Mark Danner, Armstrong’s senior designer. “Exotic woods, for example, suggest a contemporary environment, while the look of dark, even rugged, distressed flooring sets the stage for more rustic furnishings.”

The natural beauty of hardwood found in the American woodlands and exotic forests are offered in the company’s two new collections—Exotics and Rustics. From mid-tone rustics to more formal transparent darker browns to the growing popularity in tropical species, he said the floors “realistically capture each major trend.”

Danner noted the exotic woods from Armstrong Laminate include a South American Santos Mahogany and Noce Milan, a Black Italian Walnut, both in a new filled-face high-gloss finish and wider, 5-in. widths. Yorkshire Walnut, a lighter, natural version of Black Walnut, and Afzelia, an African exotic wood featuring interlocking graining, are offered in a new filled-face handcrafted finish and wider-width planks.

And, in the Rustics Collection, he said new Gallery Oak and Smoked Oak feature rustic yet refined visuals with burnished/smoked accents, also in the new filled-face hand-crafted finish, and 7-in. wider widths with micro-beveled foil edges.

At Shaw Industries, the company’s MicroBeveled Edge product collection has been given a boost with three distinct product lines: Charlestowne, Costa Rica and Salvador.

Charlestowne is the mill’s newest handsculpted and beveled-edge product, while Costa Rica and Salvador feature exotic wood looks as well, David Wilkerson, Shaw’s divisional vice president of hard surface marketing, said these products were created to capitalize on the continued interest in exotic wood looks as well as the smooth finish of exotic wood flooring.

They also go along with the popularity of individual planks with microbeveled edges, he added. When it comes to replicating the actual specie, “the colors of these products so closely simulates the real wood, it’s hard to tell the difference.”

Charlestowne features planks that are nearly 5-1/2-in. wide and features handsculpted and distressed surface texture in stunning hickory colorations.

Costa Rica comes in five exotic wood species—from golden eucalyptus to merlot cherry. These mini-planks are 4-in. wide and feature microbeveled edges.

Finally, there is Salvador, which comes in two wood species, Mahogany and Cypress. Like Charlestowne, these products have planks nearly 5-1/2-in. wide along with the micro-beveled edges.

Pergo has followed up on last year’s successful introduction of Vintage Home Traditional Strip with the recently added narrow-width, registered embossed planks to its popular Select line.

Designed exclusively for the specialty retail market, Traditional Strip will offer the same superior durability as the original Select collection, said Mike Nielsen, director of specialty retail, while also featuring micro-beveled edges and a choice of two plank widths to create a customized and authentic hardwood look.

“We wanted to leverage the success of Vintage Home Traditional Strip to further enhance Select,” he explained. “Building upon the collection’s strong attributes, we are offering new décor options, combined with innovative technologies, such as 3-1/2- and 5-in. narrow width formats.”

The new line is available in five décors, including Dark Oak, Smoked Oak, Nordic Maple, Salted Lapacho and Chalked Oak. In addition to the two widths, lengths for the boards are 31-in. for the narrower strip and 47-in. for the 5-in product. The line also features a thicker surface and core material than most products on the market.

Nielsen noted Select Traditional Strip features a number of Pergo’s innovations, such as AccuWood HPL, a high-pressure laminate texturing system that provides a highly-realistic, 3D finish; four-color printing, a unique printing process resulting in each décor featuring truer, more eye-catching colors; LusterGard Plus, this surface technology offers improved scuff and scratch protection to keep the “brand new floor” look for longer, and four-sided micro-beveled edges, in this case each edge has an eased micro-bevel to deliver the most realistic character of hardwood.

Mohawk Industries is offering French Quarter, an upscale laminate with an embossed-in-register finish.

The 8mm product comes in three styles, oak, merbau and rosewood. Using the company’s InstaClic technology, French Quarter allows consumers to choose from a number of finished looks as it can be installed in a variety of patterns, including herringbone and parquet.

A company spokesman said this ability provides dealers with “a very unique look for their upscale customers.”

Wilsonart, which recently added numerous styles to its residential offerings ( FCNews, Oct. 2/9), has launched a line of handscraped and distressed finishes for its commercial customers.

The new line includes five handscraped and six distressed designs. Randy Phillips, national sales manager for Wilsonart Commercial, said the mill is the first to launch a commercial grade artisan laminate floor for corporate, healthcare, hospitality, retail, education and multi-family housing markets.

Several of the designs come in the company’s dual-plank widths, meaning the product is available in both a 5-in. narrow plank or a 7-3/4-in. wide full board. “The dual-plank widths enable designers to achieve dramatice improvements in color variation within the floor by varying plank widths,” he said.

The artisan designs trace their origin to Europe and Asia during the 1600s, when European nobility employed artisans to create one-of-a-kind handcrafted oak parquetry and marquetry pattern floors made from hand-cut pieces of contrasting hardwoods that were scraped and scrubbed with sand, stained and polished. Likewise in Asia, where exotic rainforest dark woods and bamboos were used.

“Our new patterns reflect an increased interest in handcrafted artisan floors by commercial customers,” Phillips explained. “The interest is particularly pronounced in retail and hospitality sectors where designers are interested in creating unique and dramatic handmade artisan effects with products that are rich in character and will stand up to the wear and tear of commercial environments.”

Manufacturers are not the only ones encouraging dealers to upgrade their laminate offerings this fall. Buying groups are also pushing the message.

The Floor Trader from CCA Global Partners has launched Easy-Clic. The buying group partnered with manufacturers in China and Germany to develop four exclusive styles and 17 distinctive colors. The retail chain will market the exclusive collection as the highest value in its class.

“We see even the most particular home owners selecting Easy-Clic over hardwood, based on its beauty, durability and do-it-yourself simplicity,” said Eric Demaree, president of The Floor Trader. “This product is an example of how we are making great inroads in the industry by meeting market needs.”