Welcome to Surface, a blog by Carlisle Wide Plank Floors. Join us in discussion about hardwood flooring wood grains & styles, home decor, green building products, trends and more.
A trip into our Chicago design showroom by an architect and his client a while back has led to an astonishing floor in the client's Florida home. The architect and customer decided to go with a very unique style and technique in our Carlisle floors--a White Oak wood that would be painted (yes, painted) with white paint. That white paint would then be scrubbed off, hand-sanded and then given a water-based top coat that provides a clear and matte finish. Sound like something you'd want to try? Well, this project of 2,000 square feet took about 450 person-hours to complete! Yet, we think you'll agree that the end result is pretty amazing.
Why would you start out painting that lovely wood, you may ask? Well, this process would allow for a little of the white paint to remain behind, in the "low-lying" areas of the wood grain, while the surface retained the natural oak color. The result is a nice, light white color. This is not the kind of thing that is done every day, but it's definitely what the customer wanted. The builder, Kelly at D.C. Twin Company in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, had not worked with us at Carlisle before and ended up sending us a nice note about her experience when the project was done:
"Hello! Okay, this is the most amazing floor and beams we have ever had privvy to do..It was very, very tricky, grueling and laborious work....These photos do not do justice for these richly casual, incredible floors. When we started on site, every carpenter, painter, and builder told us we could not do it...[the customer] is absolutely elated, surpassed her vision. In fact, she is having her custom-made rugs re-cut on-site so they don't cover her new floors! ... it was so worth the difficult work, and thank you again for giving us the opportunity, we are really really proud!"
Well, gosh. We're always happy when our customers are happy, but we're also really happy when we make a new friend among the home-building community! Thank you, D.C. Twin!
Author's Name: Christine Halvorson
Posted Date: May 29, 2009 at 1:42 PM
Filed under: Wood Grains & Styles
We thought you'd enjoy see these photos of a recently completed project. They show Carlisle's Antique Hickory, set down in 8-inch widths and prefinished with Amber stain, and were sent to us by Laura Leier, our Sales and Design Consultant in Denver. We worked with a builder--Todd Gourley of Powder River Construction in Breckenridge, Colorado--on this project and he has already ordered another floor from us! We give a lot of credit here at Carlisle to the folks who work in our sample shop. They carefully match stain and wood to the customer's needs and send out samples for approval. This process ensures a very satisfied customer when the project is complete.
Author's Name: Christine Halvorson
Posted Date: April 17, 2009 at 4:22 PM
Filed under: Regions, Wood Grains & Styles
Adam, from our Stoddard sales offices, sent along these photos one of his clients had sent of their project to install pre-finished floors in their kitchen. The floor was all 8-inch nominal widths, with a 50/50 mixture of our Two Grades. It was finished with Residential Amber Coat, with no eased edge or end-matching applied. The clients were Rona and Steven Goldfarb of West Orange, New Jersey, who had begun talking with Carlisle about their kitchen renovation last February. Adam reports they first were interested in the Chestnut chevron pattern, but as they talked, the project evolved into what you see in these photos. (Adam points out the Goldfarbs were some of the nicest people he's ever worked with!) The floor was milled down at our mill in Swanzey, New Hampshire, and Adam sends a shout-out to them for doing such a great job.
We got some great photos from Sarah Bergren of our Denver offices, showing us the finished product at a brand new Philosophy Cosmetics Store in Santa Monica, California. The store is one of some 35 to 40 Philosophy Cosmetics retail outlets that will be opening soon and many of them, under current plans, will be featuring Carlisle's 10-inch pre-finished premium Ash flooring, with a clear coat--as you see in these photos. It's a beautiful floor to set off the beauty products sold there, we think. Check out these photos from the Santa Monica Philosophy store. Another store will open soon in Newport Beach, CA, and we'll try to give you a peek at that one, too, and its great Carlisle floors when they're ready.
Author's Name: Christine Halvorson
Posted Date: February 4, 2009 at 9:44 AM
Filed under: Wood Grains & Styles
Lauren Power of our New Hampshire design team received this photo and letter from her clients in Walpole, NH! The floor is unfinished… but GORGEOUS just the same. We hope to get some additional photos once the finish is applied!
Hi Lauren. Hope this email finds you and the baby in good health. Thought I would send you a small section of the floor. As of yesterday, it is all in. Moe and I are so pleased. It is absolutely beautiful!! Thank you so much for your time and your help through the process. We will never forget all you did. Are you all settled into your house?
Here's a nice letter and photos that Dan O'Neill of our West Hollywood Design Center received from his clients in Los Altos, California.
Hi Dan, How are you doing? We moved into our place this past summer - the floor looks great and everyone that comes in admires how it looks. Thanks, Mike
Tender is the new steakhouse at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas! Carlisle worked with the designers on the project. Here's what Jason Wolfe, Carlisle sales person from the West Hollywood office, had to say about his participation in the project.
"We all decided that to complete the restaurant’s masculine look would be to use our 400 year old Original Gray Exterior Barn Siding, random widths of 5-12” wide and very long boards (nothing shorter than about 10’). The design team is based out here in Los Angeles (great ladies!) and my builder is located in Vegas. Pretty cool project… in a wicked cool setting."
Carlisle's Denver Design Center has been participating in the sponsor festivities with Mountain Living at their Natural Dream Home in Cordillera, Colorado. Our FSC Certified Antique Ash floors (with a stain) were used throughout the first level of the home. The home is now open through November, for tours!
Here's a close up of the FSC Antique Ash with the brown stain, also check out the interview with sales person, Laura Leier! This article can be found in the November/December issue of
We've been working with Classic Hardwood Floors for over ten years now. Here's a nice letter from owner, Joe Boos.
Although it is my profession and can be challenging and stressful at times, I thoroughly enjoy being the owner/operator of Classic Hardwood Floors. In 1998 my brother Eric and I formed our business and had the best time of our life working together for 10 years. A person seriously could write a book about all of our experiences. We did have a few employees throughout the years, most notably our other two brothers and our father. Imagine a customers surprise after contracting us to work in their million dollar + houses based only on phone conversations and a written proposal; only to have a truckload of 18-24 year olds show up at their door on day one to install a beautiful, expensive wide plank floor. I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked how old I am, when my dad or boss was showing up, or where is the guy I talked to on the phone. Of course the outstanding results continue to be a testament to the beauty of Carlisle’s wood and our commitment to perfection. Eric has recently moved on to bigger and better things (design consultant for this company called Carlisle Wide Plank Floors), however I still enjoy installing floors with my employees Jeff and Eddie.
Originally our business was a general wood floor operation (strip flooring, sand and poly, refinishing, etc). Thanks to the expertise and knowledge of so many at Carlisle we transformed into specializing in the installation and finishing of wide plank floors. Many quickly conclude they are one and the same, and although wide plank flooring contains many of the same aspects of “wood flooring”, in my opinion it is in a league of its own. You could liken it to the difference between arithmetic and algebra. A mathematician cannot learn algebra before the groundwork or basics are laid (arithmetic,etc). I feel as if we went from being nailers and sanders to craftsmen and artists. We went from installing and finishing floors that looked good to creating timepieces that make a house.
The first floor we did with Carlisle was a face nailed, stained, and tung oiled eastern white pine for John and Randee Malmberg. Randee could not find the floor she had seen in a magazine picture. No one in the area could. After extensive searching we stumbled upon Carlisle. Todd Waterman and Chris Sy were tireless in their efforts to insure we gave Randee the floor she wanted. Thank goodness they were! What a difference this floor was from what we were used to. No conventional sanding? No way! Face nail the face of the boards with antique square cut nails? No way! However, it turned out great and because of our commitment to quality and a number of referrals from Carlisle and the Malmbergs our wide plank career took off.
Since the Malmbergs we have installed and finished 111 wide plank floors for Carlisle. We have done many eastern white pine and heart pine, along with red and white oak, hickory, maple, ash, walnut, cherry, antique woods, saw kerf surface, hand scraped surface, barnboard, and many others that I am likely forgetting.
Among my favorites are the antique woods. The warmth and character in antique wood cannot be beat. One of my all time favorites is probably the antique sweetgum (an extremely rare antique wood with grain and color being similar to a mix of hickory and cherry) we installed in Lakeside, MI. Beautiful!
We also, because of being specialists, have had the privilege of working a large territory and discovering so many great places to visit, restaurants, and wonderful people. Carlisle floors have brought us to downtown Chicago, many of the suburbs, on the lake in Michigan, and rural Wisconsin, and many other places.
Over the past 10 years we have worked with so many great people at Carlisle. I truly view it a privilege and honor to be a part of crafting your beautiful floors and working with you guys. Without your help and support we would never had made it, and we sincerely thank you for everything! The relationships formed through the years are far more than simple business ties. We view you all as friends and family. So here is to 111 or more outstanding works of art!
THANK YOU!
Here's a few photos of floors that Classic Hardwood Floors' has installed over the years!
Here's a note from Lauren Power of our Midwest Sales team:
Thought you might like to take a look at this amazing PREFINISHED floor we made for homeowners in PA.
It's a mix of 4-8" 'country' White Oak and all 8" 'country' rift and quarter sawn white oak with gingerbread stain!
The best news is that the builder is now needing about 2000 SF of prefinished Cherry for another home he's working on. This is a builder who was VERY hesitant about our terms and didn't want to pay for the floor before he saw it. I guess we proved ourselves the first time around- thank you to everyone involved in crafting this beauty!
An email from Shanon of our New England Sales staff:
Good Morning - Here are some amazing shots of our Hit or Miss Eastern White Pine wide plank floors stained Gingerbread in a new home in Hollis, New Hampshire. This was a customer that came to us loving the milled barnwood and for budget reasons had to "compromise" - but I'd say this is far from a compromise. Great job to the stoddard guys for another amazing floor. Enjoy!
Here's the nice letter and photos from her clients in Hollis, New Hampshire!
Hi Shanon,
We finally finished the last tung oil coats on the floor and it looks BEAUTIFUL!!! So many people (including the town inspector!), have fallen in love with our Carlisle wide plank floor. I thought you might like to see a few pictures of the final product. I don't have the greatest camera -but you'll get the idea! We are moving in this week and will enjoy these floors for many years to come.
Thanks so much for all your help - you all have been wonderful to work with!
Lisa and Keith Hatch purchased their Brown Maple floor (with hand scraped edges) earlier this year. They received the floor and proceeded to stain it with one of our custom stains, to match a sample that we had sent them. After a few rounds of the stain, it was turning out way too light.
Sales Manager Kevin Crowder remembers, "They were having trouble getting the same dark color on their floor that we had sent them in the sample. They called me with their concerns and I took good care of them. I paid them to have it sanded back down to raw wood. Once they did that it took the stain darker as the photos show."
Lisa and Keith are very happy with their floors! See this note that Lisa sent earlier this year:
Hi Kevin,
Our floors turned out great! It was a pleasure working with you and the rest of the Carlisle Wide Plank Floor staff. I will certainly recommend your company to others interested in exceptional wood floors.
I’ve attached pictures. I apologize for not sending these photos sooner. If you need additional ones, please let me know!
Over the years, we've partnered with Deltec Homes of Asheville, NC on many projects. One of the largest was the sponsorship of an Extreme Makeover Home Edition Home in New Orleans last year!
We received this letter and photos from David Ide of Deltec Homes this week. Our floors are featured in their model home!
Glen, I need some more Carlisle literature to put on display. We have handed out all that I had left over from my parade from last year. We have had so many people asking about the floors, they are truly the highlight of the house.
I have attached some photos for you. I can’t tell you how happy we are with how the floor came out.
David Ide Director of Customer Relations Deltec Homes, Inc. 69 Bingham Rd Asheville, NC 28806 1-800-368-7401 www.deltechomes.com
Mark Nichols of our New England sales team, visited with his clients Elena and Lynn of Jewett Farms. We highlighted Jewett Farms last week on the blog with their newest studio in Newburyport, Massachusetts having Carlisle floors throughout. Lynn and Elena got the grand tour of Carlisle and nestled in at our design center and sample shop to talk about wood.
Here's Mark, Elena and Lynn chatting about the tight grain in this slice of Heart Pine.
This is the letter that Elena sent us following their visit:
Yesterday my colleague Lynn and I traveled from northern Massachusetts into the beautiful woods of New Hampshire – we lucked out and enjoyed a beautiful New England fall day. Our company, Jewett Farms, has become an exclusive partner with Carlisle and is distributing its wide plank floors from our new design studio in Newburyport, Massachusetts. It was very gratifying and educational to visit the Stoddard operation. We gained useful knowledge about the species, craft, and artistry of Carlisle flooring – so much of the language used to describe the work there resonated for us: it is the same language we use about the craft and art of our cabinetry. We were reminded each step along the way about the very special fit that seems to exist between Jewett Farms & Co. and Carlisle.
On a personal note, when I returned to my home in Massachusetts I realized I did not have my wallet and knew that I may have left it at Fiddleheads Cafe. I did not remember, in my panic, the full name of the Café so called Carlisle and explained my situation. Pat answered the phone – not only did she find me the contact information for the Café but offered, if my wallet was found there, to pick it up for me and send it back to me overnight. Previously I had remarked more than once about the friendly, courteous, and professional voices on the phone when I call Carlisle and Pat’s effort to ease my anxiety was above and beyond and much appreciated.
Carpenters often refer to salvaged materials as coming from "the industrial forest." This somewhat comical slang indicates a growing awareness in the building industry of the importance of recycling classic wood and lumber. The US Forest Service reported:
"The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the equivalent of 250, 000 single-family homes is disposed of each year in the United States. This represents nearly 1 billion board feet of salvageable structural lumber per year, equivalent to about 3% of the current US softwood harvest. Much of the lumber available for salvage through deconstruction is from decades of old-growth harvest and represents a resource largely unavailable from any other source. As a result, much of the wood is of higher structural and aesthetic quality (higher density, slower grown, fewer defects) than is the lumber produced today."
Hardwood used in wide plank flooring can be salvaged from a wide range of sources. It has come from turn-of-the-century homes, old hotels, dilapidated mills, and even a 120 year-old, decommissioned 15 story grain elevator containing "the equivalent of an entire forest of antique, old-growth white pine in its walls." Where once this wood might have been seen as junk and discarded or burned, it is now recognized for what it is: An extremely rare natural commodity.
The wood salvage industry has expanded to harvest this bounty. The 2005 Forest Service study identified approximately 1400 businesses involved in salvaging, restoring, and building with reclaimed wood. It is a number that has steadily climbed.
Demand for reclaimed antique wood has also grown as homeowners have become aware of the look and ambiance it can provide. A National Hardwood Floor Association survey found that 56% of decorators and designers noted an increase in the demand for antique wood flooring over the past two years.
To meet this need, the hardwood flooring industry looks to the industrial forest. It's there that they can glean materials that are nearly impossible to find anywhere else. The American chestnut tree is nearly extinct, but one can enjoy the warmth it offers a home through salvage and restoration. Old growth pine harvested from a turn-of-the century farmhouse will show a dense wood grain with a tight ring pattern that just doesn't appear in virgin lumber. The aesthetics offered in reclaimed antique flooring are inimitable.
Barns that were once left to fall and rot are now seen as a valuable resource. Old houses that may have crumbled in disrepair are mined for irreplaceable flooring and fixtures. If one wants to create a period feel to a room or home, the most effective way to do so is with the materials of that period. Thanks to the industrial forest, the floors of the past live on today-and look as beautiful as ever.
(Survey results are available from The National Hardwood Floor Association:
There is something really amazing about an antique floor. If the wood beneath your feet could tell a story, what would it have to say? Who has walked these boards before us?
To find out exactly how exactly these wide planks get from an old barn to our bedroom floor, I spoke with Rich Marilla at Old Dominion Antique Lumber. The company purchases materials that are salvaged from old barns or antique structures and repurposes the wood for use in new homes and buildings. This practice has the added bonus of being environmentally sustainable, which means Carlisle's antique timber floors are FSC 100% Chain-of-Custody certified. But before this antique wood can be resettled in a new home, it must first get a mini-makeover.
Longleaf Yellow Pine used to be the dominate species in Southeastern United States. It was the Driving force behind the South’s post Civil War industrial revolution Established the social status of hard wood floors Primary wood used in early 1900s Southern homes, mills, and factories. Not to be confused with Shortleaf Yellow Pine, a fast growing timber that is used today for plywood, pulp and pressure treated lumber.
What makes Longleaf Heart Pine so special and prized by our customers is the deep amber-colored patina which darkens and becomes more beautiful as the wood ages. If a floor rich in history, family tradition, and color is your idea of the perfect surface for your home, ask for a sample of Carlisle's Old Growth Heart Pine today. It will be a floor that grows with your family for generations.
John Crosby and Don Carlisle on the Crosby Alabama plantation.
For more than 40 years, Carlisle Heart Pine has come from a 30,000-acre plantation in Alabama, owned and operated by the Crosby famliy.
This is the first in an on going video series we are calling All About Wood, highlighting the history, facts and thoughts about our most popular wide plank hard wood flooring.
You may have noticed in our green literature that we refer to our products as "Antique Reclaimed", as opposed to using the words "antique" or "reclaimed" separately. While many of us think the terms can be used interchangeably, there is actually a distinct difference between the two.
Dictionary.com defines each word as:
Antique - any work of art, piece of furniture, decorative object, or the like, created or produced in a former period, or, according to U.S. customs laws, 100 years before date of purchase.
Reclaimed - Something brought into or returned to a suitable condition for use, as cultivation or habitation.
Just because something is reclaimed does not mean that it is antique. Think of a 20 year old basketball court: someone could salvage those boards and sell them as reclaimed but they are not considered antique. This 20 year old floor could be FSC certified as "Post-Consumer Reclaimed" but it does not have nearly the charm of our Antique Reclaimed floors.
If you are shopping other "reclaimed" products, make sure to ask if they are also Antique - as it will add patina and allure to your home.
Author's Name: Lindsay Barczuk
Posted Date: April 3, 2008 at 3:44 PM
Filed under: Wood Grains & Styles
Hi, everyone! I'm Lesley and I have the privilege of working with the great folks at Carlisle to help with their new adventure in blogging. We're excited to announce Carlisle's first guest post, written by our resident 'Green Queen', Lindsay Barczuk over at the FloorTalk Blog! Lindsay took some time and crafted a really great entry for FloorTalk, discussing her journey at Carlisle from a newbie to a now seasoned employee with a deep appreciation for the wood that Carlisle offers and the methods used to produce it. Some topics you'll find in her entry include:
Choosing slow-growth wood
Antique reclaimed floors
Responsible and sustainable forestry and harvesting
Carlisle Wide Plank Floors' processes from forest to floor
The health benefits of hardwood floors
and more!
Basically, whether you're looking to purchase a floor or just want to learn more about wood flooring, this article takes you on an indispensable tour through the things to consider and how to achieve the best quality floor for your time and money. Congratulations, Lindsay, on a job well done!
Do you have a blog that you'd like to feature one of our bloggers on? Do you have a story you'd like to share with us to feature on our blog? Leave us a comment!
Check out this link to my sister's Denver Victorian Renovation blog. She has been converting a multi-apartment Victorian house in the Baker neighborhood into a single family home. She and her husband had originally hoped to salvage the existing floor, but they concluded the original floors were past the point of repair.
They came to Carlisle wanting to match the grain and color of the wood. They are restoring most of the original woodwork throughout the home and wanted a floor to complement the rich mahogany finishes. We custom crafted a handful of samples and ultimately found that this Old Growth Heart Pine with Autumn Leaf stain and Tung Oil finish was the perfect combination.
Check out the link and some of the other cool antiques they discovered along the process. Any of you have experience working on a similar type project?
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