WFB went through its archives and realized some of the amazing craftsmanship of past Floor of the Year winners belonged on the internet, and WFB Throwback was born. The following article originally appeared in the August/September 1993 issue (when the magazine was Hardwood Floors):
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WFB went through its archives and realized some of the amazing craftsmanship of past Floor of the Year winners belonged on the internet, and WFB Throwback was born. The following article originally appeared in the August/September 1993 issue (when the magazine was Hardwood Floors):
Merit Award, Residential Category: Buffalo Hardwood Floor Center Inc.
Three times is a charm for Jim Caroll—for the third consecutive year, Buffalo Hardwood Floor Center walked off with a trophy at the 1993 NWFA Convention.
Unlike the last two years, when Caroll’s floors took the top commercial award, this one’s a residential project and “only” a third-place winner. Caroll, though, isn’t disappointed, particularly since this floor isn’t nearly as sophisticated as floors that have tended to take the top honors.
“Winning third place with a very simple floor is interesting,” Caroll says. “Compared with the other floors, this is very clean, simple and plain, and the degree of difficulty just wasn’t there. Maybe it’s the beginning of a new trend.”
Caroll’s crew—led by installer Ken Michels and finisher Bradley Smith—installed 2,500 square feet of wood floors with borders and inlays all through the brick Colonial house, mostly of Brazilian cherry. The winning dining room floor consists of bird’s-eye maple with distinctive wenge border pieces.
It’s a design that came close to never happening. Caroll’s customers—“the nicest I’ve ever had,” he says—came in when the floor was half-installed, and the wife “thought it was too much,” as Caroll puts it.
“She asked how much it would cost to tear it out and do the room plain,” he says. “I said, ‘Well, why don’t we just finish it and if you don’t like it, it’s going to cost you the same amount to tear it out and redo it anyway.’ So we finished the floor and then she fell in love with it.”
For a “simple” installation, there was more difficulty in store. Caroll’s design runs across two air vents.
“The owner was upset, but there was nothing we could have done about the placement. We were dealing with a small area, and we wanted the border to be outside the table and chairs, and set away from the wall so that it stood out. No matter which way we moved it, the vents were still going to be in the border.”
Instead, Caroll says, “we tried to turn a negative into a positive.” He contacted Wood Ventures and had them custom-make bird’s-eye maple and wenge vents that matched the floor’s pattern exactly.
“We’ve done this a number of times,” says Caroll. “If it’s done properly, it blends right in.”
Such obstacles have been rare for the company, which has seen pretty smooth sailing since Caroll, a former renovator and contractor, “started this thing with no more than $500.” Now, the company is racking up sales of $2 million a year and keeps on winning awards—even unexpected ones like this one.
“I thought this had a lot going for it, in the way that it fit the space,” Caroll says. “The biggest thing, I think, is that a lot of floors don’t look like floors anymore. A beautiful round floor would have been ridiculous in a dining room with a table set on top of it.”
Suppliers:
Abrasives: Carborundum Abrasives | Adhesives: Capitol Adhesives Inc. | Buffers, Sanders: Clarke Industries | Finish: DuraSeal | Flooring: Horner Flooring Co., International Hardwood Floors Inc. | Nails/Nailing Machines: Powernail Company | Wood vents: Wood Ventures