Floors Don't Wear Out, They Ugly Out

I'm back on ugly floors again. The tired old saying in the flooring industry is that floors don't wear out, they ugly out. Apparently, there is some truth in that as evidenced by these and other photos. What was once stylish, can soon become that hideous floor of yesteryear. Those beautiful greens and oranges that were hip in the 70's never really came back in style. I'm still curious to know who still has these floors now considered ugly. Send me your pictures at: timholland@homeplustx.com.

SmartStrand Carpet Challenge Results

Last Saturday, we held the SmartStrand Challenge during the East Texas Builder's Assciation's Home Products Show out at Maud Cobb Convention Center in Longview, TX. We hosted several rounds of staining by registered participants and this is what the carpet looked at by the end of the day. We supplied the "stainers" with red Kool-Aid, grape juice, ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, grape jelly, dirt, bleach, cola, and chocolate syrup and let them try and stain the SmartStrand carpet. On Monday, we moved the challenge ring back to Home Plus and had Cathy's Carpet Care come out and attempt to remove the stains.


The results: The SmartStrand performed much better than anyone had imagined. Except for a few remnants of mustard that will have to be spot cleaned, the carpet came clean. We had only one side cleaned to show just how bad the entire carpet was stained. The remaining side smells kind of like the dumpster behind a McDonald's, so I'm not sure how long we will leave it on display, but if you're in the area, stop by and see the results for yourself.

The SmartStrand Challenge Ring is ready!

The ring is complete for the SmartStrand Carpet Challenge on Saturday. If you want to help trash the carpet at the Home Products Show at Maud Cobb Convention Center in Longview, be there on Saturday and sign up. We will supply a Home Plus t-shirt, plastic gloves, and all of the staining products like coffee, mustard, Kool-aid, grape juice, chocolate syrup and dirt. We'll have standard 3-minute rounds every hour throughout the day on Saturday only beginning at 10:30am. On Monday, we'll bring the carpet back to Home Plus and have it professionally cleaned by Cathy's Carpet Care. Stop by and see if the stains come out.

Ugly Floor Contest

Are you still wondering why Floor Matters? Ugly floors are one really good reason why they matter. Sure, they can still be functional, but once a floor goes ugly, they're hard to look at. Think Elvis' Graceland and the Jungle Room. Avacado green, oranges, browns, blah. The 60's and 70's were a good time to be color blind. Most of the older, ulgy floors have mercifully been covered up, but not all of them. Do you currently have a floor that can be called ugly. Upload your best ugly floor in East Texas photos to our Facebook page (Home Plus Longview). We'll let everyone vote on who has the most awful, ugly floors. The winner will receive something special.

SmartStrand Carpet Challenge

Last fall, Mohawk tested their SmartStrand carpet against a 2,800 pound Rhinoceros named Ricko at the Birmingham Alabama Zoo. They installed SmartStrand carpet in Ricko's cage and let him do his thing for two weeks. You can only imagine what he could do to it. At the conclusion of the two weeks, they had the carpet cleaned and the SmartStrand carpet stood up to Ricko the Rhino's challenge and came clean.
Here at Home Plus, we kept up with the challenge and even received pieces of the carpet. It was impressive, but my skeptical nature makes me want to put SmartStrand to a more relevant test against real household stains. With our Home Products show coming up soon, I decided to incorporate it into our display booth out there. I'm thinking challenge, fight, throwdown so what better way than a boxing ring. We built a 10'x10' scaled down boxing ring and we will set it up at Maude Cobb Convention Center for the ETBA Home Products show starting on February 12th. We'll invite people to help us trash this piece of carpet with the stuff that really happens to carpet. No Rhino waste, but mustard, red wine, red Kool-Aide, grape juice, snack crackers, and bleach. Those are the real enemies of carpet. If SmartStrand to stand up to these stains, it will hold up in anyone's home. I will post updates as they happen