FLOR Story: Are You Kidding Me?
One of the amazing benefits of FLOR is the fact that it’s modular. You can literally pack up your rug (or wall-to-wall install) and take it with you. That is exactly what this customer did. Check out how Susan re-installed Needlepoint Stripe tiles and transformed her butler’s pantry.
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Dear Flor,
We recently moved into another old house (an 1832 Greek Revival). We brought along our Flor tiles (once two 12″ runner rugs in “Laurel Needle Point” from the previous home), purchased additional tiles and reinstalled them in our butler’s pantry.
We were seriously impressed with these tiles as runner rugs (in our previous home) since it took less than a half hour to put them together and our English Mastiff, Hercules, could not move them when he ran across them (he’s 175 lbs. – good tip for mastiff owners on these rugs – these dogs move furniture, but the runners never moved).
The problem with our butler’s pantry in this “new” house is that (at one point) it was created from half of an original 1830′s porch and half of an 1880s addition. This combining of structures left a large beam running in the middle of the room’s floor where the two floors were married, but which also created a big hump formed by a difference in height between the floors (in addition you will also notice a step up in another area leading to the family room). We are experienced DIYers and we knew that this hump (along with other issues) was significant enough that any other floor installation would have proved impossible. The previous owner solved the issue by using two different floorings (vinyl and carpet), but I was determined to see one flooring down to create a sense of cohesiveness to the space and to, visually, enlarge it.
I was, however, apprehensive, about how easy or accurate cuts could be made since I had never cut a Flor tile. That’s where “Are you Kidding Me?” (email title) came from. Not only are straight cuts clean and easy to do, but after creating paper templates for the more complicated cuts, transferring and cutting curves and compound cuts really proved what a beautiful product this is (which left me saying to myself during installation “Are you kidding me? This flooring can do this!”). Both straight cuts and custom cuts were dead-on accurate. The flexibility and weight of the tiles hugged the floor hump and the pattern seems to have visually camouflaged its existence (the hump runs parallel with the numbered pantry doors and under the grey bench, if you can believe it!). The lines of the pattern also seemed to have straighten the entire room (which is so not square, anywhere).
Style wise this product provides a high-end, contemporary option in flooring for old houses (although the needlepoint pattern nods to historic colonial patterns.) Flor’s flexibility makes it a problem- solver without having to go an unsightly utility product.
In conclusion, we recycled a pattern and flooring that we loved, saved money, solved a myriad of old-house issues all at once and gave what was once an awkward space, a fresh, contemporary, open feel. Thank you for such an attractive, well-engineered product!
Most Sincerely,
Susan – New York
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