Floor Talk!

Interested in remodeling your home, but don’t know what you want? Are there too many choices to choose from? Are you nervous about the commitment of changing your floors? If so, Good Housekeeping and the WFCA have just the thing for you.

Look for the May Issue of Good Housekeeping to enter for a chance to virtually design a room in YOUR home. There are a lot of free virtual room designers out there, like the one on the WFCA website. These room designers have pre-chosen room scenes that may or may not look like your home. However, by going to the WFCA home page and entering the Good Housekeeping giveaway, you can take a picture of a room in your home, upload it and then try on different floorings in your home without ever leaving your computer! Imagine getting to see what different new floors look like in your home without leaving your home or committing to one type of floor and wondering what another type would have looked like.

If you are one of the first 200 people to enter the sweepstakes, you can try this virtual remodel FREE. If you are not one of the first 200 people to register, then the cost is only $25. So, get online and visit the Good Housekeeping Website or the WFCA website and enter today!

Let us know if you upload a photo of your home and have an experience to share!

Color Trends - Color trends in fashion and home styles often cross paths. The thing to remember is that trends are always changing, changing with the seasons. Don’t feel pressure to change your home’s color palette every time fashion trends change! The natutral time to change your home colors will happen when you are ready. These changes over time will help create your own personal style. Over time you will have an eclectic look that you can be proud to call your own.

The ultimate source for color forecasting in fashion is Pantone. Click here for Pantone Fashion Color Report Fall 2008 and Pantone Fashion Color Report Spring 2008. My favorite color from the spring report is Cantaloupe!

Hot Colors

• Purple - in fashion and home, purple is the front runner of color.
• Yellow - Yellow is the new orange! Orange will still remain with a presence, but not quite as hot as yellow.
• Blues - varying shades from soft spa blues to robin’s egg blues to deep sea blues. Many nature inspired blues.
• Greens - with all of the buzz about the environment, natural greens are making their way into the home
• Browns -look great with other hot colors, especially the softer colors where black would be too harsh.

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TRENDS IN CARPET AND AREA RUGS

With hardwood and tile being selected in more living areas and hallways, this is allowing bedrooms and rooms off the hallway to have their own identities and themes. Carpet in the hallway can dictate that the surrounding rooms be the same material because when the doors are all open it doesn’t look so great for the hallway carpet to be seamed to several different colors or pattens of carpet. Hardwood or tile serves as a neutral divider. Because of this, rooms can have patterned carpets that compliment the theme of the room, bedding or drapery or wallpaper.

Natural fiber carpets and rugs have enough texture on their own, but the addition of raised patterns on top of that texture made me want to break out my checkbook and order some!

Carpet companies like Glen Eden are taking advantage of the metallic finishes that are so popular by incorporating them into their patterned carpets. (left)

Because of the continued use and success of hard surfaces in main living areas as well as bedrooms, area rugs are in high demand. Like other colorful accents, rugs are being shown with lots of color, bright and bold colors as well as great patterns that can let the rugs be a focal point of the room.

Trends in residential products include warm neutrals, large and small patterns and soft luxurious yarns. With rooms having their own themes and identities, it’s easier to use multiple patterns and colors. Patterned carpets are becoming focal points and foundations for rooms that are dictating other design choices in the room. (these pictures are courtesy of Flooring the Consumer author C.B. Whittemore who is the Director, In-Store Innovation for Solutia’s Wear-Dated carpet fiber) For more information about carpet trends, see Christine Whittemore’s post on The Carpetology Blog called The Latest in Carpet Style Trends .

(Craftwork) (Shining Allure)

TRENDS IN TILE

This may be the most exciting trend, to me! No longer is the most popular beige or a variation of beige but a celebration of color, range and texture! It’s about time!! By the way, the more color, texture and range a tile has - the more it hides DIRT. Large format tiles are

still on the forefront, but larger tiles and more shapes are coming into play. These multiple sizes allow for more unique patterns. There was one tile that was 24″ x 48″! It was so huge that it was also being used for vanity tops in addition to flooring.

This raised the question to me if home owners are less concerned with resale, taking more risks with color and falling in love with the outcome!

One exciting texture is fabric. Several companies were showing tiles with linen textures, leather textures and patterns. The look is very soft, without being boring. The listellos offered with these tiles were particularly exciting if you only want subtle pattern with a little “pop”. The floor of the Crossvile Ceramics exhibit booth showed a combination of the large floral pattern with the texture of linen. It was very feminine and calming. Another popular texture was a quartz and slate look. These tiles are very versatile and look great on the inside, outside as well as on the walls.

Listellos and accent tiles seemed to be more modern and contemporary. It was refreshing to see so many different style patterns and color combinations. I wasn’t sure if Subway shapes tiles would still be popular…Thank goodness they were. Not only were they still popular, but new sizes that are more linear were exciting! The Subway tiles are so flexible because they can be used in simple traditional settings and also extremely modern settings.

Glass tiles were still on every corner, just this year there were more styles, finishes and textures. Glass tile patterns incorporated with metal, pearl finishes and patterns within the glass give you the opportunity for endless design options.

TRENDS IN HARDWOOD AND LAMINATE

Just like more color seen in tile, wonderful ranges of color were shown in hardwood. Lauzon’s new products were the most appetizing colors. Coffee and chocolate colored stains with a pearl or low luster finish were so refreshing from the sea of golden colored hardwoods.

In the new product pavilion, Harris Wood showed painted hardwoods with the edges randomly sanded to look like old worn painted boards. The beauty of it is, with this product you get the look of painted boards, but with the strength of aluminum oxide on the finish.

Similar to the painted woods are the Olde Paint line from Anderson. They did a great job of making the boards look authentically old and worn. It reminded me of cottages and old historic homes in South Carolina.

Rustic and handscraped hardwoods are even on the texture bandwagon. One company showed a product with the look of texutre, wire brushing, reclaimed and handscraped properties all in one irresistible product. Creatively, they used the flooring boards to create a door. It got so much attention they wised they were in the door business as well!