Hi all,

Another great thing about shopping with a traditional retailer is ease of design. When you’re shopping with a company that has a show room and samples down the road you have have the opportunity to see everything they’ve got in one trip. This is helpful as you can bring down your other samples such as paint, counter top, drapes etc, and compare them quickly and easily against their entire hardwood offering. Moreover, once you’ve narrowed it down to a select few floors, most stores will lend you a larger 2′ x 2′ sample board that you can take home.

Online retailers can’t offer this ease of design. Most charge for the shipping of the samples, but not all, which is restrictive as the more you order the higher the cost of shipping.  Once they arrive, samples are often single planks 10-12″ in length which makes it difficult to make a color selection. When one considers natural colour variation from plank to plank , it becomes difficult to determine which end of the colour spectrum your sample represents.

I was once at a Benjamine Moores paint outlet where once a week they had the resident interior designer available to answer questions and give advice. I thought it was a great idea and took advantage of her expertise. I haven’t come across this in a hardwood retailer…does anyone have a retailer they want to plug?

Cheers,

Tom

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