The Long and Short of Hardwood Flooring Presentation
If you’ve had a chance to explore our new website, you’ve seen the stunning photos in the
Hardwood Flooring Galleries that showcase our flooring in realistic settings. Notice how each photograph is composed in a manner that lets you truly appreciate exactly how our hardwood flooring could look in your home. Notice how the photos show large areas of open floor. You can easily see how long our boards actually are. “If you’re proud of the hardwood flooring you’re selling, the flooring should have the spotlight in the photos,” says Greg Gaylord. “The consumer is buying the flooring, so we believe we should show them how great our products are.” You may be browsing our website because you’re shopping around for quality hardwood flooring. You may even have checked out our competitors’ websites. Did you notice the quality of the flooring sample photos does not compare with those of Gaylord? Did they even have photos of hardwood flooring in realistic situations? Chances are the photos were swatches of hardwood flooring. If there were photos of rooms installed with hardwood flooring, they were likely blurry, letting you see the colour of the flooring, but not the quality of the hardwood or the length of the boards. Or maybe the photos showed furnished rooms, with the furniture and area rugs as the focal points, rather than the flooring itself. Sometimes in the photo the text for the product’s specs are printed right over the image of the flooring sample. So why do most hardwood manufacturers hide their floors in photos? They may be hiding short board lengths.
What You Don’t See
If you can’t see a product clearly in a photo, you can’t really be sure what you’re getting. The flooring may look nice, but the board lengths may not be very long. When it comes to hardwood flooring stability, longer boards mean more stability. Gaylord Hardwood Flooring produces longer lengths of boards than our largest competitors. Standard flooring items come in lengths of 1-8’ with a 40-48” average board length. We also have specialty products up to 12’ in length. Competitors typically offer boards with an average board length of 27-29”, and that may be what they don’t want you to see before purchase. “When you’re buying hardwood flooring, you want concrete details on what that flooring will actually look like in your home,” Greg advices. “Hardwood flooring is a big investment, so you don’t want to choose your flooring based on a small sample or a blurry photograph.” Greg recommends that before placing an order for hardwood flooring, customers ask the salesperson what the average board length will be. “Have them put it in writing. If a salesperson is hesitant or refuses to do this, you should be concerned. Better yet, have them open a box in front of you so you can see for yourself what the average length of the boards is.” Don’t be deceived by marketing ploys that misrepresent a product. Whether you look for hardwood flooring at our
Tweed Showroom or choose your flooring from our online Hardwood Flooring Galleries, at Gaylord, what you see is what you get.
