New local finds the perfect hardwood flooring at Kermans
Published: October 19, 2017
When you move, there’s always so much to do.
From registering your kids for school to getting up to speed at your new job, it can be a hectic time. Add to that tasks like unpacking, reorganizing, and doing little things to make your new house feel like a home, and it can be exhausting.
That’s why it’s great when you can find a helpful partner—like a free Kermans design consultant—to share some of the burden that comes with settling in.
When busy professional Gisele Garraway moved to the Indianapolis-area, she choose Kermans to help update the flooring in her family’s new home, freshening up the look and customizing it to match her style. Garraway worked one-on-one with our design consultant Jessica Dault on the flooring update projects.
“I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with Jessica,” says Garraway. “Her knowledge of flooring is vast, and she has a keen eye for materials and how to best incorporate them into your decor. I was impressed that Jessica was able to assess our rooms and determine which would require pre-work to insure a high quality installation. She knows her stuff!”
We spoke with Dault, and she told us more about this satisfied Kermans customer’s flooring makeover experiences and she also shared some tips for decorating your home with hardwood.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Tell us a little about your recent hardwood project for the Garraway family.
Kermans design consultant Jessica Dault: Gisele was a walk-in customer. She moved here from out of state and recently purchased a older home. She wanted to install some new floors to make it her own.
We ended up helping her put in hardwood flooring throughout the whole main level of her guest house. She was great to work with and knew what she wanted. Gisele has great taste.
I’ve continued to work together with Gisele on small and large flooring projects for her new house, including some tile in the bathroom, and it’s definitely been a fun process with a cool person. I’m working on a stair runner for her right now.
The previous home owner had recently remodeled the house in certain areas, and Giselle wants to continue to do more updates to put her stamp on it.
Her family has a great house. It looks fantastic.
Did you run into any problems while working on these flooring projects?
Jessica Dault: There was a hang-up with her wood flooring project. When I went out to her house, I noticed a problem in the baseboard.
Her concrete slab was very wavy in certain areas, and the baseboard showed me that. Because they had installed the baseboard flush and level, I could see half-inch to one-inch gaps here and there.
So, we did a lot of floor prep to get that hardwood down. I worked with the best installers, and now that it’s in, she hasn’t had any issues with it.
The communication was there, Gisele was available and onsite—it was a just great job. I can’t say enough good things about how it went. It was perfect.
What’s your favorite space to decorate with hardwood flooring in a home?
Jessica Dault: If it was up to me, I’d use hardwood flooring throughout a house. I love wood. It adds so much warmth to a house. It’s just a nice surface to have down. It’s a natural product, and it’s got so much character. I’d use it everywhere if I could.
There are some people who don’t go with hardwood because of its cost or their pets or other reasons, but the ones that do choose hardwood floors are always very happy.
What hardwood flooring trends have you noticed lately?
Jessica Dault: Trends are across the board.
Lately here, with Kermans customers, I’ve noticed that the oil-finish and brushed-look options have been popular. More and more people are opting for the look of a flat surface and matte top coat.
What’s the difference between engineered hardwood flooring as opposed to solid wood?
Jessica Dault: There’s a lot of confusion out there when it comes to engineered hardwood versus solid. I’ve heard people say “that’s not real wood” in reference to engineered, but it is real wood, too. They even finish both the same way.
The only thing different with the engineered plank is they use plywood (or some other material as a core) to help stabilize the top veneer of real wood, and what that does—especially here in Indiana where we have crazy humidity and temperature changes—is it helps stabilize the planks natural need to expand and contract.
With a solid plank, the wood is all the way through the plank. It’s 3/4″ and porous so there’s a lot more expansion and contraction. When that happens with solid wood planks, you see gaps, and you might even be able to hear some creaks and cracking because that’s the property of wood in general, especially when it’s exposed to extreme temperature conditions. If you don’t have a humidifier or dehumidifier, that can even affect it.
Having the right environment in your home really sets the wood up for what it’s going to do.
What’s a good first step when you’re ready to explore new flooring options?
Jessica Dault: We’ve got a lot of choices, and it’s just a matter of talking with us and telling us about your needs. Come by Kermans. How you live, how you maintain your current floors—we’ll ask all the helpful questions to help you figure out which flooring solution will fit best for your lifestyle and design needs.
Stop in, and we can navigate you through the store and help you pick out a few things that you might like. I am here to help. This is my second home. I’m here pretty much all week. I’m almost always available, and I can’t wait to work with you.
At Kermans, we don’t just help our customers sort through the options. We partner with them to get to know more about their lives. That way we can make the best recommendations for flooring solutions that will last for years to come.
