A couple visiting the Ralph’s showroom recently asked me, “What type of hardwood floors would you put in your own home if you were getting new flooring.”
I could tell what they were thinking: “This guy’s a hardwood floor expert; if a certain type of flooring would be good enough for his dream floor, it’s good enough for us.”
This is actually a question I get ever so often, and my reply is always the same: “My answer is irrelevant.”
Yes, as someone who’s worked with hardwood flooring all my life, I have technical insight that most people don’t have—and that’s insight I gladly share. But my choice of a dream floor would be based entirely on personal taste, and my taste has no more validity than someone who’s never even thought about hardwood flooring before.
Everybody’s dream floor is different. That’s why I told these curious homeowners: “It doesn’t matter what my dream floor is—what matters is what yours is.”
There are so many possibilities with hardwood flooring, no one needs to worry about copying someone else’s dream. Species, color, grain, texture, sheen, size—we can customize all of these variables and more so that your unique dream comes to life.
Of course, we’ll offer our expert advice about what works best for certain rooms, decorative styles, etc., as well as what doesn’t. But we know from experience that it’s best to help homeowners decide on their dream floors but to never push them into a certain look—even with such a simple statement as, “This is what I’d put in my home.”
So I started showing this couple around the showroom, where they could see, feel, and walk on more than 4,000 square feet of hardwood flooring samples in real-life home settings. They compared species and the other variables, and we gave them samples to take home. We also gave them our free Idea Book.
When they returned the next week, they weren’t asking about my dream floor anymore because they had their own dream floor in their head. They had been doing what we were hoping they would do—envisioning the look that was just right for them. At that point, we were able to put our expertise to work to make that floor become a reality.
It wasn’t my dream or Ralph’s dream; it was their dream. We were just privileged to be a part of making it come true.
Photo courtesy of jill allyn stafford
