Salem, N.J.—As an innovative answer to the growing consumer trend of cocooning and home improvements, Mannington Mills has launched a new residential Web site emphasizing interactive design technology. By providing interactive decorating features in addition to a comprehensive overview of all Mannington’s residential flooring products, www. Mannington.com takes the consumers beyond the usual catalog style found at many manufacturer sites. The site allows the consumer ways to visualize how her decorating ideas and improvements to her home will appear. According to Lori Keith, Mannington’s Internet marketing manager, “the goal of the site is to make it as easy to use as it is useful to the consumer.”

Using the Virtual Decorator, which is the key feature of Mannington’s Web site, a consumer can select a room scene and alter not only the flooring plan but the walls, draperies, cabinets and upholstery. She can even change the direction of the pattern of a selected floor in the room scene. “The Virtual Decorator feature allows the user to see how Mannington’s floors would look within an entire design scheme,” Keith said. The Web site also features the Find A Floor section allowing the user to search for a floor by design preference and performance requirements particular to her needs, or by name or style number. Keith noted, this tool allows users to search through wood, laminate and resilient flooring collections by identifying design attributes such as brightness, color, traffic and pattern scale.

Additional features of the site include Fresh Ideas, with the newest Mannington products in wood, laminate and resilient; Floor Choices, with tips on how to choose the right floor for different situations; Design Desk with decorating tips; Store Locator, powered by Mapquest, which allows the user to search for the closest store by ZIP code and proximity to her home; News, which features the latest news from Mannington, and Customer Service, with warranty information and a link to contact Mannington with questions.

In other news, Mannington announced its partnership with Galleher, a premier flooring distributor in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., has been strengthened with the wholesaler becoming the latest “One Mannington” distributor. As the oldest distributor of Mannington Wood products, Galleher will now carry all three Mannington residential product lines of wood, laminate and resilient flooring, as well as commercial resilient and vinyl composition tile. Founded in 1937, Galleher expanded with the new home construction boom in California following World War II. Now, with over 200 employees and 30 sales representatives, it is the largest hardwood-flooring distributor in its area. “We feel that adding Galleher as a ‘One Mannington’ distributor really rounds out our network in the Western part of the country,” said Mark Hollinger, director of the Mannington distributor network. Mannington products will be carried at each of Galleher’s six Southern California branches located in San Diego, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Van Nuys, Irvine and Inglewood.

For more information, contact Mannington at 856/935-3000.