Every industry has trends. Flooring is no different.
Much like fashion, the wood flooring industry is subject to cycles of trends. The most recent trend has been a focus on White Oak floors with wide planks and light or natural stains. The most recent trend before that was colorful and or distressed floors, like American cherry or a hand scrapped dark stained Hickory.
We are seeing a change in trends in real time as the cost of White Oak remains out of reach for most. The new trends emerging are two fold:
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- We are seeing a rise in biophilic design or the use of natural elements to bring a sense of outdoors inside.
- The other trend is injecting personality in the floor. Folks are doing this with various styles of parquet to highlight their own personality. Parquetry is geometric patterns of small wood tiles. Herringbone (evenly cut rectangles arranged in a pattern) is the most popular format in this category.
There has also been a massive change in finishing technology over the last 5 years. Most manufacturers are moving away from super high gloss as it shows scratches and dents more easily. Matte and satin finishes are much more popular these days. Low gloss means low reflections. With less attention to the shape and surface of the floor homeowners are less likely to notice scratches, dust or debris.
Why products get discontinued.
With these trends there are bound to be winners and losers from a production standpoint. The longer a style remains popular the more likely someone is to find matching material. The issue of course is the trends change so fast. We often see manufacturers run a color for 2-4 years. 2 or less if the color isn't popular or sells poorly. 4+ if it's popular! A great example would be Gunstock. Most manufacturers make a gunstock stain and will continue to do so because it is a timeless color. The gloss level may change with the trends, but the color is likely to stay the same.
When a manufacturer decides to discontinue a color there can be many factors that determine that choice such as sales volume or cost of production. These mills are a business after all and need to make money to survive. If a product they make is sitting in a warehouse and not on someone's floor they are losing money on it. Manufacturers regularly evaluate sell through rate and profit margin to adjust their production. Many of these mills can only run a handful of colors at a time. Some can only do one! So it shouldn't come as a surprise that finishes get the axe regularly.
What can I do to protect myself or find what I need?
If you've read this far I'm sure you are wondering what can you do to find the floor you've been looking for. The unfortunate answer is that you aren't likely to find an old and discontinued floor. We typically recommend Etsy or Ebay to track down a loose box. The likelihood is slim but some folks have luck using this method.
The good news is there are options for matching your floor. If you have solid or engineered hardwood we have a few directions we can look to match or copy your flooring.
The most practical option would be to purchase unfinished flooring in the same thickness and width as your original floor. Most manufacturers make solid and engineered flooring without a finish. This is useful when trying to match, as you can take your old flooring to a paint store and have them mimic the stain as best as possible. You would then lay the new unfinished floor and stain on site to match. This is how to get the closest possible match, as even if you find the same floor with the same stain from 20 years from now the gloss may be different, or your old flooring may have faded in color over time.
How do you avoid these potential future issues?
The easiest way to be prepared if you need a small amount of future flooring is simply to order more flooring than you need right now. We realize it sounds self-serving for us to make this recommendation, but we truly get calls every day of the week form homeowners trying to find one more box of an old discontinued floor.
Your best bet is to buy an extra 1-3 boxes than you need to complete the project, then stash those extra boxes in the garage or the basement just to handle small scale repairs in the future. Your future You will thank you!
I hope you feel a little more educated on trends and why most floors are likely to be discontinued over time.
-Hardwoods4less