Flooring in the Fall

Clay Fowler, general manager of Louisiana Stone, has his finger on the pulse of what’s hot in flooring this fall.

“Right now what we’re seeing a lot of is that people are starting to do a lot more natural stones which includes travertine and marble,” he said.

Homeowners are looking for a uniform look that carries a theme throughout the house, and even into their landscaping.

“A lot of pool companies and individual home owners are taking the color of their kitchen floor and flow that all the way out to their pool – so you have the pool coping and pavers that go all the way around it in the travertine for example.”

Fowler said many homeowners are looking for an expensive look without the high price tag.

“The patterned tiles are also becoming very popular – in porcelain we are seeing a lot of wood look styles, which means you don’t have near as much maintenance. There is also a new process that is becoming very popular is called an inkjet. They can take porcelain or ceramic tile and put any type of print on it. What that means is for example, you could get an inkjet print of Calcutta marble for about half the price than the actual marble. This process has been around for a few years now, but they have really gotten it perfected so it looks almost the same.”

Iron Doors

Nothing sets the tone for your home more than a beautiful front door, and Acadian Iron Works general manager Clay Fowler said the trend from basic wood is shifting to iron.

“We import and stock over 300 doors and ship all over the U.S. The doors are made of solid steel, and homeowners are finding for just a little bit more money they can put a really nice wrought iron entry door on their home versus a wood door,” Fowler said. “The iron door doesn’t have the maintenance of a wood door – with a wood door you have to stain it every year or two, and it’s going to swell. With the wrought-iron doors, once they’re in, they’re in. Really all you have to do is wipe the pollen off every once in a while,” he said. There are options in stock, but if you’re willing to wait, you can create your own custom look.

“We stock about 15 different designs, but we also do a lot of custom doors. For the same price as a stock wood door, the homeowner can create their own design for their iron door. For a stock standpoint, for just a little more money than a wood door, they can get an iron door. On a basic double door that you see on most houses now, the iron doors only run about $600 to $800 more than a wood door.”