The Nufloors team has returned from our annual visit to the city that never sleeps, Las Vegas, after having attended the North American Flooring Show called ‘Surfaces’, which is attended by about 30,000 people from flooring manufacturers to retailers. Not only did we see the show and all the new wonderful products that are headed into our showrooms in the next few months, we were able to take advantage of some of the 70+ education seminars on a whole array of subjects from sales and marketing, customer service, colour and design trends and communicating with Generation Y to name a few. After walking the show for 3 days (there are over 700 supplier participants!) we have to admit, we didn’t see every supplier, but we did get a wonderful feel for the new and interesting products for 2012 and here is our brief summary of some of these insights:
Hardwood –
We saw a beautiful but tough new hardwood by Armstrong called Premier Performance – it is a hardwood floor that stands up to kids, pets and active lifestyles. Liquid acrylic and a Permion® wear layer make Premier Performance a dramatically tougher engineered hardwood floor that resists scratches, scrapes, dings and dents better than any traditional hardwood floor. This one comes with a 35 year residential warranty and is worth considering if you have a very busy household (dogs included!)
Laminate –
We saw Mannington’s newest laminate flooring introductions which take the next step in realism, with the authentic look of reclaimed (there’s that trend again) wood in a thicker 1/2” plank. It really is getting harder and harder to tell if it’s laminate or hardwood once you see it on the floor! Here is a link to the Mannington site: http://www.mannington.com/Residential/WhatsNew/Search.aspx?FilterCollections=4\
Carpet –
We are seeing Lace on the catwalk for Spring/Summer 2012 collections and the lace trend is making its appearance in carpet design also. This Beaulieu carpet has a unique contemporary pattern composed of intertwined asymmetrical swirls. This is a perfect carpet for a beautiful bedroom.
Area Rugs -
The 2012/2013 colour trend is all about energy. During Surfaces, we sat in on the Design and Colour Trends 2012/2013 seminar, presented by Victoria Redshaw of Scarlett Opus out of the U.K. The current colours are vibrant and lively and the designs in area rugs are reflecting these brilliant colours. We’ve provided a link to the Scarlett Opus website which details Victoria’s colour trends for 2012/2013:
http://trendsblog.co.uk/?cat=31
CERAMIC –
We have always believed the possibilities are endless when designing with tile and that we had seen it all. But wow, it just keeps getting better. We saw tile from a Bangkok company called “Sonite” who offers new and interesting products that are manufactured with their signature concave and convex curved surfaces that give a sense of depth and texture. The slight variation inherent in each tile comes from their specialized method of sculpting the material to form each individual tile that is unique.
Hardwood looks are also available in tile! Mohawk’s collection called “Stage Pointe”, features a wood plank visual for home owners who want to create the warm look of hardwood in areas of their home where the high performance of tile is required. 
Daltile showcased metallic porcelain tiles which offers a unique look in metallics featuring shimmering coppers, bronzes, titanium’s and irons. Stunning!
We’ve only summarized a few of the many new products arriving at the Nufloors stores in the next few months. We think of ourselves as being in the ‘flooring industry’ but we are not, it is much more than that, we are in the “floor fashion industry” and are delighted to see that we, as an industry, are keeping pace with the trends and colours each year and commit to provide our consumers with the latest in floor fashions. After all – flooring is that important 5th wall that begins the design process in every room. So many choices!
We’ll be back at Surfaces next January and we can’t wait to see what’s coming next – and as always, we’ll keep you posted!












































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