Woodwright Hardwood Floor Company is a proud member of the National Hardwood Flooring Association (NWFA). The purpose of the NWFA is to provide wood flooring manufacturers, distributors and installers with policy and standards regarding all things wood flooring. Every year, the organization holds a Conference and Expo specifically geared towards wood flooring companies like ourselves. This year the conference and expo were at the beautiful Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, Texas-right in our backyard! Our Architect + Design Consultants attended the three day show with the purpose of gaining additional education knowledge that we can pass on to you as well as discover and new exciting products that we could share with you, our clients. . In short, we went back to school and went design hunting. Here is a brief recap of what we discovered from our three day tour.
- The facility, Gaylord Texan. We were impressed with the Gaylord Texan as a conference destination. First, you have reasonably priced covered parking. Second, there are plenty of dining options. The only thing we love more than wood flooring is food. Just kidding-kind of! Lastly, the size of the convention center was more than adequate. There were three other shows/meetings at the same time but we never felt the Gaylord Texan to be too crowded.
- Opening Ceremonies. The opening ceremony speaker was Howard Putnam, former CEO of Southwest Airlines. The theme of this year’s show was Think Big. It was a fitting title and message since we had all survived the economic downturn and all signs are pointing towards a recovery. He spoke about creating an organization where people are your most important asset as well as overcoming difficult times. We found Mr. Putnam to be very engaging and his message very relevant to our company. To learn more about him, please visit his website here.
- Continuing Education. The organization put on several classes to further educate those in the wood flooring industry. Much os thsi knowledge is then passed on to you through our own Lunch and learns or CEU’s. We attended a few classes on reclaimed wood flooring and specifying commercial wood floors just to name a few. The CEU on commercial wood flooring even featured 4 of our projects! So what did we learn? Well you will have to wait and find out specifically. We will be introducing some of the content into our presentations. However we will note that our present presentation was 100% on target with the information we received from the NWFA instructors. In fact, our program goes into more detail.
- New products. Reclaimed, reclaimed, reclaimed. There were several reclaimed wood suppliers at this show and we are excited about what we are going to create for you. Be on the look out for new samples of river reclaimed pine, reclaimed birch and reclaimed teak. We will be issuing a product sheet in the near future on reclaimed teak that we believe will blow your mind. Our A+D team have created some exciting new samples using reclaimed teak. We even are creating a colorful wall application that may leave you saying “can they really do that?”. Why, yes we can.
The close of the event was the awards show. While we were nominated for several awards, we are sad to say we missed out on winning this year. All the nominees are incredibly talented and are proud to have been associated with them. Below are the images of the projects we had nominated.
Cheers till next time!
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