Fall intros: New products set the tone for selling season

HomeInside FCNewsFall intros: New products set the tone for selling season

September 17/24, 2018: Volume 34, Issue 7

By Ken Ryan

As a new selling season approaches, floor covering retailers are gearing up for what promises to be a busy pre-holiday bonanza. Suppliers, likewise, are looking to provide that extra incentive by rolling out new products to excite retail salespeople and consumers alike.

Following is an overview of new products making their debut this fall.

Anderson Tuftex  

Kensington and Buckingham, the new premium sawn-face white oak floors from Anderson Tuftex, are crafted to reveal a soft refinement. Dimension was added to the colors through a multi-layered staining process. The products feature a classic wire-brushed look to intensify the natural grain patterns in the wood or a more contemporary, cerused visual with deep, beveled edges.

Armstrong  

With Rigid Core Vantage, Armstrong Flooring combined striking and realistic wood styles in an extra-long plank format to create a dramatic look. Rigid Core Vantage was built to maintain its beauty under heavy traffic, moisture and high impact. Larger format planks create a bold look while painted bevels enhance the beauty of each board. Rigid Core Vantage boasts a dense polymer composite core (for superior dent resistance) along with a commercial-grade wear layer. Longer lengths and enhanced durability are joined together in a bold, new collection of Alterna Plank. These engineered tiles produce a true alternative to ceramic and porcelain with Armstrong’s Diamond 10 technology. The collection offers many wood visuals in a new 6 x 36 groutable size.

Arte Mundi

The Renaissance collection is built with the guarantee of durability and timeless aesthetic. From sourced woods to the finest floor finishes, this collection displays rustic appeal and superior quality. The classic birch, hickory and high-quality white oak creates a tranquil, country-like atmosphere. The textures for this collection are characterized by a heavy hand-scraped surface with natural cracks, saw marks and mineral streaks. The edges of each plank are micro beveled and chiseled to add to the rustic appeal. These textures are hand scraped to allow for each plank to truly be unique.

“Our Renaissance collection is really a combination of the best of both worlds,” said Louis Kao, vice president of sales and marketing. “You get the beautiful textured rustic look with these floors, but you don’t sacrifice or compromise on comfort in any way.”

EarthWerks  

The CORE collection encompasses all of EarthWerks’ waterproof, multilayer click products. With this new categorization, WPC and SPC are joined into the same segment—rigid, waterproof, floating flooring, offering powerful performance that stems from the CORE. The collection houses the expanding 48-SKU assortment of WPC and SPC ranging from 12 x 24 tiles and 7 x 48 planks to its new 72-inch long, EIR, painted bevel and cushion-backed Parkhill Plus XXL WPC. This new collection stands out with its dramatic size and realistic wood tones.

Mannington  

The Adura Selling Solution is a display system that houses 80 styles in three constructions. With this selling system, the consumer chooses the floor she desires, and the RSA helps her choose the right construction.

“Quite frankly, it is the most innovative thing on the street today,” Jeff Striegel, president of Elias Wilf, said of the display. The three constructions featured in the display are: AduraMax, which dampens sounds by up to 30% and provides comfort underfoot; AduraRigid, Mannington’s new SPC rigid floor with an attached pad on the back of the plank; and Flex, a glue-down LVT suitable for large rooms or installations where consumers don’t want transition strips. This floor features ScratchResist and can be installed with grout.

Mercier  

Building on the success of Element, Mercier brings this series to the next level with the addition of colors to its reactive staining process. Orage is available in white oak, while Terrain is offered in hard maple featuring warm browns and beige-gray undertones. “With the popularity of real wood grain and character marks, this newest take on Element just enhances the visual with a look that is realistically sought after,” said Wade Bondrowski, director of sales, U.S. market.

Mirage   

Lunar Eclipse, part of the Flair collection, boasts a look that’s anything but ordinary. As rich as it is vibrant, Lunar Eclipse reflects shades of brown, black highlights and warm touches of beige. This versatile color range is meant to stand the test of time for decades without losing its original charm. “Today’s trends are about getting back to the source and reconnecting with nature, with matte floors that express the authenticity of wood at its best,” said Brad Williams, vice president of sales and marketing at Boa-Franc, makers of the Mirage brand. “Lunar Eclipse recalls this trend with a color that’s here to stay. It’s perfect for looks ranging from bold to traditional.”

The Flair collection of hardwood flooring has all the natural characteristics of wood and oiled flooring without the maintenance hassles thanks to its matte and highly resistant DuraMatt finish.

Mohawk 

Mohawk’s RevWood Plus—wood without compromise—is an exceptional solution for active households; the product resists stains, scratches and dents. RevWood Plus also features a waterproof flooring system that traps liquids on the surface, so spills, splashes and tracked-in moisture can be easily wiped away. RevWood Plus also carries the All Pet Plus Protection & Warranty, the only warranty covering all pets, all accidents, all the time, according to Mohawk. Ideal for families with children and pets, RevWood Plus offers all the beauty of wood with the serious performance needed for any room of the house.

Novalis  

NovaFloor is focusing on its Elite Dealer program this fall with special deals on its display systems, including its new Serenbe collection launched in 2018. Serenbe comes in a flexible glue-down format while Novalis’ waterproof, high-density core installs over most subfloor imperfections.

The Serenbe Side Car Display carries the complete line of product in a small, efficient footprint for the dealer’s showroom.

“Serenbe has the new tile looks that my customers are looking for in an LVT,” said Danielle Myer, manager of operations, Wade Distributors, Mobile, Ala.

Philadelphia Commercial  

Surface Works, Philadelphia Commercial’s next-generation carpet tile collection, is lightweight, easy to handle and economically packed (20 tiles per box). The collection features the StrataWorx backing, which extends the feasibility of carpet tile to the broadest range of end users and applications.

A second offering, Color Washed by Philadelphia Commercial, was inspired by the watercolor effect of moving from light to dark color. This high-performance luxury vinyl tile collection features an 18-color palette that showcases visuals of fine-grained wood with subtle horizontal etchings. Color Washed is a direct glue SPC product with Advantium Core for best-in-class impact and dent resistance, as well as Philadelphia Commercial’s ExoGuard finish for added scratch resistance.

Schönox  

The Schönox family of self-levelers has grown with the two new compounds—AP Rapid and AP Rapid Plus. The new products feature a hybrid active dry technology that offers benefits of both cement and synthetic gypsum-based materials. The Schönox R&D team studied this technology for years to perfect the dust-reduced, pumpable, self-leveling compounds for a versatile, worry-free application. The precise binding formula contributes to the unique hybrid features such as early drying and curing time, prompt strength development, and reduced shrinkage/expansion.

Schönox AP Rapid and AP Rapid Plus are suitable for jobs of all variances. The hybrid compounds are designed to withstand varying climate and humidity settings during interior installation.

Shaw Floors

Uptown Now WPC Plus, Shaw Floors’ newest resilient introduction, features a new accent bevel that showcases plank-to-plank definition for a more dimensional, realistic wood visual.

Produced in Shaw’s state-of-the-art facility in Ringgold, Ga., Uptown Now WPC Plus is 100% waterproof, includes ScufResist Platinum finish as well as an attached pad and the Fold-N-Tap locking system for easy installation.

On the soft side, Bellera High Performance Carpet offers exceptional durability with lasting beauty and is backed by Shaw’s time-proven R2X soil and stain resistance with its exclusive LifeGuard Spill-Proof backing. Bellera includes 13 styles with on-trend colors, textures and patterns.

USFloors  

COREtec Plus Premium is the softer, warmer and quieter floor. This 12mm WPC product represents the next generation of COREtec Plus. Since it is 100% waterproof, COREtec Plus Premium floors can be installed in wet areas and will never swell when exposed to water. COREtec is dimensionally stable and will not expand or contract under normal conditions. Each COREtec Plus Premium Plank has an attached cork underlayment for a quieter, warmer vinyl floor that is naturally resistant to odor-causing mold and mildew.

The Naturals collections—which boast 46 Natural Wood SKUs this year—include cork, bamboo and wood floors. The Natural Wood series consists of four collections: Atlas, Meridian, Wilderness and Enclave. Each collection is offered at a different price point, reflecting various benefits and design elements. Every board has been crafted using hand-rubbed stains, mending techniques, low-gloss coating and surface treatments to create a floor with a time-worn look to enhance any interior being urban chic or rustic elegant. Naturals offers plenty of color variations from taupe to rustic grays to shades of browns.

Wellmade 

Opti-Wood High Density Plastic Composite (HDPC) rigid core flooring is now available in 7-inch widths and 84-inch lengths. Featuring real hardwood veneers in a wide variety of species, including oak, hickory and walnut, Opti-Wood is among the industry’s first waterproof hardwood flooring products.

“We developed the Opti-Wood premium plank in direct response to our growing customer base,” said Steve Wagner, director of marketing, Wellmade Performance Flooring. “The wider-longer planks provide exceptional visuals that support emerging designer trends in the industry.”

Wellmade’s patented HDPC core is noted for superior density, tolerance to temperature fluctuations and waterproof performance. Low-luster wire brush finishes are prominent in the collection along with distressed and hand-scraped textures.

 

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