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Thursday, October 1
Rusty Lawson with Kahrs discusses the Smaland Collection, flooring made with a natural European Oak from Sweden.
Transcription
provided by TumiSpeaker 1 (00:02):
Hi everyone. I'm Ren de Cherney, the host of Snack Break from Source. Every Monday through Thursday, we take 20 minutes to cover hot topics in commercial architecture and design, including new product releases, designer stories, industry leaders, and the impact of design. If you're tuning in live and know that you're automatically unmute, but you can use the chat feature to ask questions. You can also find a video recording on demand at, to the Source.com or subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Spotify by searching Source net break. Today is the 1st of October Howard. You believe we've made it to October, but here we are. And our guests is our friend Rusty with Kahrs flooring. Hey, Rusty.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
So can you tell, before we dive into this new product launch, can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you got to be where you are and then a little bit about Kahrs as a company?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, so my background I've been in interior finishes flooring for 27 years. I've worked for Kahrs for about seven years now as the manufacturer's representative. My job is to support distribution it's to work with architects and designers to promote the Kahrs product. The more important question as you mentioned is who is Kahrs, Kahrs is a flooring manufacturer that has invented the engineered hardwood flooring. Yes. Yes, very innovative quality Laden company. That is its message is to make quality products and to support our customers and to have beautiful products and interior finishes.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Perfect. And where is carers based out of
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Great question. So Kahrs is a Swedish based manufacturer. So Sweden is our home. We have us corporate offices within the Orlando, Florida area. I'm regionally based in the Pacific Northwest, but Kahrs is a European based company.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Nice. Okay. And it sounds like, so when did they invent engineered flooring? I want to know
Speaker 2 (02:05):
[Inaudible] 1940, 1941. The actual patent was granted, but Kahrs has such a long history with woodworking products, 1857. So several different innovations from toys to doors to obviously flooring as prominent
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Sweet. Okay. So they, they did one stuff for a hundred years and they're like, you know what, let's invent something and then did that. Cool. And I've been selling it ever since. Okay, great. I love that. So let's talk about this new line that you want to talk about. Tell us a little bit about it. First of all, tell us how to pronounce the name because it looks like it is Swedish
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Tomorrowland actually is a region of Sweden at the Southern tip of Sweden or a part of it adjoins the coast. And it's just an, it's a region that was divided up a long time ago. It's a densely forested area ran, but there's other, there's some other interesting things about small and that people may or may not know the founder of a Tia is from a small end region.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I was going to make an Ikea joke, but I couldn't remember if that was the right location. So I'm, I'm glad to know we're all on the same page here. I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And I there's actually a museum and Ikea museum in the small and region. Other, it's just a very diverse achievement oriented section of Sweden. So you have a small,
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah. Okay. So tell us a little bit about what the look of this collection is. What are the sort of target markets? How can designers use it? What makes it different from other, other collections that you have?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, the exciting thing about the small and collection for me is I'll start with the basics. It's a nice wide plank product offering. So it's seven and a half inches wide, basically. It has wire brush texture and character to it and the color line as you'll go through them. You'll see in several instances ran kind of a whitewashed or worn look to it, which is to do really, really well. Any area that overlooks a waterway, such as either Puget sound or any ocean or any river or Lake basically ran because the look is designed to simulate that wood that either washes up on shore or maybe gets a little bit sun bleached. It works really well in regards to like a historical building in a downtown area. So let's say you've got an old building, that's got brick on the interior. You can't use new and, you know, flatly clean something.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
That's got a little bit of character to go with that brick. Or in some instances ran, you'll take those old beams that are supporting those buildings. And so the swollen collection does very well in, like I said, the overlooking water areas and or those historical old buildings, you can use some of the cleaner colors in some more urban, sophisticated townhomes, if you wanted to. The other things that make it unique is that it's got a very thick wear layer. So ran it easily can work for commercial applications easily specified for mixed use retail. The color schemes work extremely well in a whole wide variety of offerings.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Sweet. Okay. That's great. And it looks like there's a pretty good range in terms of like you've got the lighter sort of blonde or looks, but also these deep rich tones where would you recommend putting the darker tones and how can a designer talk to a client about like maintenance of two particular products? Like are some going to show dirt more or are there things that like maybe don't put it in an entry or like what should designers know about these sort of working those two extremes?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, that's a great question. So with regards to the small end collection, it's actually part of carers is offerings that are oil finished floors, natural oil, finished floors carrots puts two coats of the oil on at our factory and immediately after installation, another thin coat goes on to seal the seams, but also just to make sure that it's a penetrate and non-penetrating double product. So the natural oil does a really good job with regards to having the product go in. Like you had mentioned either entryways or in a retail circumstance, because think about it for a second. If you're moving at gondola or something across it, the wire brush texturing and the finish itself lends itself to not showing wear and tear. So you end up doing to the floor, it mostly ran just descends down into the character of the floor.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So it's like almost a distressed look, but not quite like rustic, correct. Just enough to hide stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah. There's a couple in here that you'll see that are very rustic. You had mentioned that darker floors, there's one in there called to Veta which is extremely well, it's not extremely dark. It's still got some Brown tones to it, but it's got some heavy character to it. And it would work in a good environment where you're trying to showcase some majesty or some real boldness for example Tommy Bahama clothing stores, they don't quite use the, to Veta color, but they use one that's similar to it in another line, it's an oil finished product. They love it from the standpoint of it's easy to maintain and it hides all kinds of different sins. And so it wears very well.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Okay, great. So when it comes to specifying these are all engineered wood products, so that means that there is real woods sitting on top of a Bakker. I'm assuming plywood. Yeah. So you okay. You're like, I've got some right here. Awesome. Okay, perfect. Okay. So are there, can this product be refinished at it's or like, you know how some wood floors you can refinish them and like, is that a thing that works with this particular product?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah. So care's always puts aware layer on there. I don't know if you can see it, but we put it on there that it's thick enough to get to sanding. So, okay. So we guarantee the two samplings, but the nice thing ran about the oil finished floors is that if, like I said, you moved to gondola or something across it, and it scratched it pretty deeply. You actually could just take a little bit of very, very light sandpaper and just scuff that out at all, loyal to it, blend that oil in, and you will have recoded that floor before you actually needed to sand it. If you were to have gouged that floor, then yeah. You probably need to do a sand and refinish.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Got it. Okay. But that is possible. So a client, you could talk to your client about that. Okay. when it comes to specifying engineered wood, are there things designers need to keep in mind in terms of the sub floor R or moisture? Like what should we keep in mind, especially as we work in, like you said, historic buildings, things like that. Are there considerations we need to think about?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah. So the nice thing about the engineered wood floor is that they are very versatile and the installation system that we offer allows designers to specify the product over concrete, over JIP Crete, over plywood. That's a little bit unique to carers because our product has the versatile installation system that allows you to float the product over the concrete or floated over chip CRE. You can glue it down if you wanted to, it's not necessary, but the installation versatility means that designers have the capacity to specify it. Let's say for example that it was a three-story situation firmly above grade on grade. And then even below grade, the engineer dimensional stability of the Kahrs products means that you can specify in all three levels. We want to make sure that there's not excessive moisture emissions on that below grade. So you would test that, but we offer some items that would help to dissipate any moisture circumstances. So it's very versatile with regards to specification in all of these different applications of mixed use retail multi-family commercial applications.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Sweet. So what I'm hearing is
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yes. You know, you wouldn't want to put it into like a full bathroom circus obviously, but in many other applications. And the other thing to ran is that we have a lot of different job references. So if you're looking for a specific reference type, just reach out to your Kahrs representative and we're happy to send you something that would probably be applicable to what you're working on. Correct.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Great. So can you talk to us a little bit about like the trends you're seeing in wood flooring in terms of character, in terms of colors like what are you seeing coming from Kahrs and what are, what sort of demands are you seeing from designers?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
No, that's a good question. So regionally in my region, the questionnaires that I ask, I always find recently that people are looking for lighter colors, for whatever reason, quite white, but very similar to the color that you're showing there. Maybe something that's got so tope and some gray to it, but that you can still see that Brown of the hardwood bleeding through it. Certainly in the city circumstances, you're seeing a high demand for very clean wood, not maybe more consistency, but certainly as customers are being confined to their interior spaces, they're understanding the natural beauty of nots character, mineral streaking, so more suburban or outlying areas, undoubtedly the type of floor that you're showing right there, very popular. I think that one's called [inaudible] I believe. And that particular color, as well as some of the other ones in kind of the medium to lighter tones, Ren have become very, very popular.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Sweet. Okay. Yeah. We can say it now more than ever people want. I feel like that's the phrase we hear all the time now. Now more than ever people want natural wood products. I love it. Because this product is made, I assume these are all milled in, in Sweden with trees that they own. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, that's a great observation. So sustainability is extremely important to Kahrs. Since we've been in business for so long, we realized that our reSource needs to be responsibly stewarded. I guess if that's a word for every tree that we cut down, we replant two to three trees to replace and actually ran. There are more trees in Sweden today than there were in the 1920s a hundred years ago. So yeah, taking care to very responsibly, for example, most of what we show is Northern European white Oak. We do have Ash, we do have maple, we do have other things, but Sweden very much realizes that this reSource needs to be taken care of carefully and needs to be replanted. The small end region in general also is a densely forested area. And so they're very, very careful to responsibly steward of that reSource.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Awesome. So if a lot of the products are white Oak, does that mean to get the different colors and different looks? You're sort of doing stuff to those, to that white Oak and does white Oak sort of take sort of stains really well. Is that how that process works?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, that's a great observation and question. Yeah. So white Oak is European white Oak is used extensively for the reason you just laid out. It accepts stain very, very well. It is extremely durable. And also the, the rock character of the wood itself, the rift, the quarter and the flat sawn, the three grains cut the tree Kahrs, uses all three of those grains. And so each of those grains accepts the stain a little bit differently and it's like you said, it actually shows the natural character and the natural beauty of the product. And so hence the other thing that's true about the European wide Oak is it's almost infinitely abundant throughout Scandinavia and other parts of North America. And so it's as a reSource it's readily available, very durable. And then the most important element it's very dimensionally stable, it spand or contract as much as say other things like Hickory, Hickory is not very stable. So you're in Washington or Montana or some of the more arid, dry climates, Hickory, or Acacia products will struggle. Whereas the European wide Oak is going to perform extremely well.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Awesome. So it's basically like a little unicorn of it does everything of what? Yeah. So you get a bunch of different looks. Okay. So when we're all, when we Royal, we designers are all Pinteresting Scandinavian looks, chances are good. We're looking at white Oak when we're looking at European white Oak, when we're looking at those photos of those gorgeous Scandinavians sort of look and feel yeah. Do you find that because this, I find this happens in other categories, such as tile, where products are coming out of Europe, they're usually like a year or two ahead of trends, like design trends that we see here in the United States. Is that a similar thing for wood flooring or does wood flooring have sort of like a longer lifespan, just because of the nature of the product.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
There's two answers to that question. Sometimes in a regional pocket, it can just not have anything to do with Europe, but you alluded to earlier is true. I find things come over from Europe, kind of hit New York and then it explodes across the country a little bit slower in some cases, but the trends definitely flow along those lines. And w the European thing for us also is very important from a designer standpoint, right now, we've not been subject to tariffs for close to 25 years, as far as changes in tariffs. And so our product pricing and availability is very stable. A lot of Asian import products right now are subject to some very variable tariff circumstances, which messes with the pricing of those products. And that actually in some cases messes with the flat-out availability of those Asian imports. So while we're not perfect, certainly we run out of stock from time to time. But our pricing is very stable. The product is very on trend as far as what you had alluded to. And so you can specify it with confidence, knowing that the pricing is going to be stable. Awesome.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
So before we go, can we also talk about your mega planks? Does this product come in your really, really long planks? Cause I know you have some that are like six feet or eight feet long. Can you talk a little bit about those?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah. So good observation. Yes. The small end collection from Kahrs does come in the eight foot long boards. The nice thing about the mega planks as you allude to them is that it's very easy to install them. They install quite quickly because each time an installer sets a piece down it's five and a half square feet worth of material, just, you know, boom installed. So, but the more important element as a designer is that the aesthetics of looking at the beauty of the wood across eight feet is that your customer buys the hardwood. They don't buy all the joints and having more of the wood is really important because as designers, the most important thing you convey to your clients is that when you use wood, you are adding value to that structure, whether it's home, whether it's a business. And so the eight foot long boards do a really good job of allowing a designer to add value to that structure. We also offer one product. That's 10 foot long board. It's not seeing here, but the eight foot long boards are stunning attractive, but they also add value to your structure.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah. How do you make those boards? Is, do you just use older growth or like what, how is it physically possible?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, it's, it's a little bit facetious or a little bit interesting, but actually selecting the tree is one of the most important elements of actually finding these items that we're talking about. So you know, a lot of manufacturers have to, by-product on the open auction market here. Typically doesn't need to do that since we have several European facilities where we own the land we have the ability to kind of control that. And so when we look at trees and when do we responsibly harvest those circumstances, it allows us to pick the best trees in order to bring product to market. That's a little bit unique, like you're saying
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Great. All right, well, I'm ready now. So designers, if you are ready to order samples, right. This instant you can order some from our website to the Source.com and reach out immediately for samples from Rusty. For those of you who are listening to podcasts, we'll, we'll throw the same link into the episode description. So you can also get some samples in the meantime, Oh, look, he happens to have them right there,
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Sample boxes that lists what the items are. They fit in your library in a small way. Our distributor partner, T&A supplier, TAS contract is the person to contact. So as you need samples, just feel free to reach out to us.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Perfect. Well, to me, it sounds like I'm ready to start putting wood flooring and everything. So I think we should do it right. Yeah. Thank you, Rusty. I hope. All right.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Thanks. Bye.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Bye.