Highlights include digital printing, distressed, new strand woven and exotic concepts
By Matthew Spieler
Volume 26/Number 19; February 4/11, 2013
Wood flooring may have been one of the hardest hit categories when the housing and financial markets collapsed, but anyone walking this year’s Surfaces show floor would have been hard pressed to find any signs of a beaten industry. Rather, exhibitors of all sizes came out swinging for the fences with an array of styles and performance attributes to satisfy even the most demanding end users.
On the style side, mills displayed visuals that until now could not be achieved. But thanks to advances in technology, such as direct printing, cork suppliers are now able to offer products that no longer resemble cork but rather marble and tile as well as other types of traditional wood looks. Other visuals took advantage of distressed techniques to give the final product a worn, reclaimed look, such as wood salvaged from an old barn, while others simply took actual reclaimed wood and turned it into unique types of flooring. Continue reading Wood: Innovations make category ripe for recovery
DEER PARK, N.Y.—Salesmaster Flooring Solutions, one of the country’s leading distributors of commercial flooring products and installation supplies, is expanding into the wood business by partnering with Joel Lefkowitz, former president of Hoboken Wood Floors, at one time the industry’s largest wholesaler. Lefkowitz will serve as the president of the aptly named HW Flooring, which is being billed as an affiliate of Salesmaster. He has put together an experienced team of wood flooring veterans that includes Marty Ackerman, who was Lefkowitz’ vice president of sales at Hoboken; Ken Reilly, who most recently served as hardwood sales manager at Apollo. 