Virtual Room Designer

Trying to visualize what the different styles and colors of flooring will look like in a room can be difficult. Today, some companies are adding a virtual room design tool to their websites to help consumers see what the flooring will look like in various room settings.

FloorFacts.com has recently added a virtual room designer to help homeowners visualize and explore their flooring options. The tool is completely free and lets anyone try out a variety of styles and colors of carpet, hardwood flooring, laminate flooring, vinyl floors and ceramic tiles in many different interior room settings. It's a fun way to sit back, relax and explore your flooring options right from the comfort of your home.

The virtual design tool is created by Swatch Builder a leader in virtual design tools for the home decorating industry.

Click here for our virtual room designer. We hope you enjoy it and find it helpful while exploring your flooring options.

Ricko the Rhino SmartStrand Story

Ricko the Rhino and Mohawk Flooring's SmartStrand Story. Very cool way to show off this terrific, environmentally friendly carpet.

I read 60lbs. of rhino poop a day. Kids, don't try this at home! :)

Rhino versus Mohawk's Smartstrand Carpet

On August 14, Mohawk will install SmartStrand triexta carpet in the indoor enclosure of The Birmingham Zoo’s only Eastern Black Rhinoceros, leaving it there for two weeks. Ricko the Rhino will live as usual in the zoo, eating, sleeping, rolling his ball around and doing things that just come naturally to a 2,800-pound rhinoceros. All on Mohawk’s SmartStrand carpet!

Webcams will be strategically placed throughout the enclosure, including a night-vision webcam, to capture the rhino's life on the carpet. Anyone can watch the Ricko the Rhino as he romps and tromps around all over the SmartStrand carpet.

See: Ricko the Rhino romping on Mohawk's Smartstrand Carpet.

Hardwood Flooring Guide for Do-It-Yourself

A lot of homeowners are finding if they do their own installation they can afford to buy better grade hardwood flooring. If you are a handy do-it-yourself person hardwood flooring is really not that difficult to install. The secret is to have a good resource to help walk you through all the steps from measuring, layout to the actual installation.

HardwoodInstaller.com is a great web site for those looking for reliable information about hardwood flooring and hardwood flooring installation. The web site is owned by Ken Fisher, who has been involved in the hardwood flooring business and wood flooring installation for many years. He offers a wealth of knowledge to consumers looking for help buying and installing hardwood floors. Ken also has a forum, called Hardwood Flooring Talk, where you can chat about hardwood floors and get some great advice about installation, refinishing and care for your hardwood floors.

Installing Mirage Lock Hardwood Flooring

The Mirage Lock video is a great example of some of the new prefinished wood floors that are available that do not require any glue, staples or nails during installation. (You will still need some wood cutting tools, etc.) Glueless wood floors (like Mirage Lock) are installed by floating the wood floor over the top of a wood sub-floor or fully-cured concrete slab.



The only thing I noticed when visiting their web site is the Mirage Lock has a "High-density fiberboard (HDF) core". The HDF core is what is used with laminate flooring. So this is really a laminate core construction with a real wood top layer. In other words, this is not a true engineered wood floor. None the less, it is an easy-to-install flooring option for someone who desires a wood floor appearance. Note: Mirage also manufactures real engineered wood floors as well.

Transitioning Wood Flooring Between 2 Rooms

Often homeowners want to have wood flooring installed in adjoining rooms. The question arises how to transition the wood planks in the doorway. HardwoodFlooringGuide.com has a good article covering your options. Click here to view the article on adjoining wood flooring between 2 rooms.

A Chance To Win Free Flooring!

The World Floor Covering Association (WFCA.ORG) launched a fabulous SPRING SWEEPS valued at over $20,000. What a great way to do your Spring decorating.

The WFCA online Spring Sweeps rules state:

Contest entries begin February 4, 2008 and ends at 11:59 PM June 23, 2008(PST). Limit one entry pre household and no purchase neccessary.

Prize Awards:

• 1 Grand Prize of Floor Coverings and Installation Services of an approximate retail value of $10,000


• 5 First Prizes of an approximate retail value of $11,200 will be awarded (About $2,250 each)

Winners will go to a selected WFCA retail member to pick out the flooring and have it installed up to the retail dollar value of prize.

Click here to go to the WFCA web site and sign up.

Glueless floating hardwood floors

I recently published a page on FloorFacts.com discussing the new hardwood floors with glueless locking systems that you can float over different subfloors, such as wood, concrete slabs and some types of existing hard surfaces materials. The photo I show on the left is a Mannington wood plank with the specially designed tongue for glueless installation that I took it with my Canon Rebel digital camera. Although it's okay I don't feel it really helps consumers understand this terrific new glueless installation system.

While working on a web site development project today I came across a great Quicktime demonstration on RobinaFloors.com that really does a nice job of demonstrating how wood planks are interlocked together with this glueless installation system. Once you see this video I think you will have a better idea how wood planks are interlocked without gluing or nailing. (Just be patient, the Quicktime video takes about a minute to download before viewing.)

Click here for the Robina Floors VR-Loc Glueless wood Plank Quicktime Video.

Benjamin Moore Virtual Fan Deck a great tool

Many times when we are going to buy new flooring the decorating project also includes freshening up the room with a new coat of paint. As homeowners we often make trips back and forth to the local paint store trying to discover the right colors for our decorating project. Well now you can explore your paint color options online with Benjamin Moore's Virtual Fan Deck. This is a fun and terrific way to explore various colors hues. (As a web developer for many floor covering web sites, I also use tools like this to explore new color combinations for showing off the latest flooring fashions online.)

So the next time you want to choose a new paint color for your latest decorating project, just sit back, relax and go to Benjamin Moore's Virtual Fan Deck web page.

Armstrong Premier Performance Hardwood Flooring

I recently read where Armstrong Hardwood Flooring was named a winner in the Home Magazine 2008 American Building Product Awards for its Premier Performance Hardwood Flooring style. This Armstrong 3/8" thick, engineered hardwood floor has a feature they call: "thru-color construction". What this really means is the top wood ply of each plank has been totally impregnated with acrylic and stain. We saw this same thing years ago with Hartco's Pattern Plus product line (was discontinued a long time ago).

The advantage is when a plank is scratched the color doesn't change because the stain and acrylic go all the way through the top finish ply. Also, since the top ply is totally saturated in acrylic it is harder than normal. The disadvantages are you can never refinish or re-stain your wood floor and the appearance looks a little less natural.

Armstrong states on their web site that Premier Performance Hardwood Flooring can be glued-down or floated over most wood sub-floors as well as fully-cured concrete slabs. You can also install these floors on, above or below grade. So if you are looking for a really tough, durable hardwood floor this may be worth seeing at your local specialty flooring store.