Surface Blog

Welcome to Surface, a blog by Carlisle Wide Plank Floors. Join us in discussion about hardwood flooring wood grains & styles, home decor, green building products, trends and more.

Come Earth Day, come over to Newburyport to meet Carlisle and Jewett Farms Studio

Posted by Christine Halvorson

We're pretty excited to be partnering with Jewett Farms & Company and Jewett Farms Studio, a hand-crafted design studio based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, for an "Earth Fest" event that links great green companies and products with great green eats. The trip to Newburyport is worth it at any time--it's such a fun, port city--so this event is bound to be icing on the cake. From April 24 to 26, Jewett Farm is hosting an open house with a green theme. Visitors can stroll through the studios to get ideas on period kitchen redesigns or custom office cabinetry (see here for just a sample), all the while being awed by the Carlisle floors underfoot. Jewett's products, like ours, are made form sustainably grown wood. We've partnered with Jewett since 2008 because the craftsmen there show the same attention to craft and detail as we try to maintain in our products.

The Earth Fest events at Jewett will feature appetizers and drinks on Friday and Saturday evening, brunch and drinks on Saturday morning, and brunch and drinks on Sunday morning. The food will be prepared by one of the best restaurants around and will be all natural. All the events are open to the public, but attendees should RSVP to (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

You might want to check out the Eco Collaborative, the Newburyport-based organization behind the Earth Fest celebrations that weekend.

Posted on March 30, 2009 at 01:20 PM in Green Building • (0) Comments
Carlisle is part of “Green Life Smart Life” project in Rhode Island

Posted by Christine Halvorson

A showcase home in Rhode Island, designed to showcase "green" products, will be featuring Carlisle's Wide Plan Floors very soon. The Green Life Smart Life (tm) home is intended to help homeowners and builders what is necessary for a home to achieve LEED-H certification. Carlisle is one of six new partners in the project, along with companies that offer eco-friendly roofs, stone, siding and deck options.

Carlisle Wide Plank Floors is supplying custom-made FSC-certified antique reclaimed hardwood wide plank floors to Green Life Smart Life. The wood for the floors will be harvested from an old abandoned barn in New England. Carlisle is working closely with the Green Life Smart Life team to find just the right local barn that captures the family essence of the project. The Carlisle floors will cover more than 45 percent of the home's floor surface area, which will qualify Green Life Smart Life for full LEED-H points. Reclaimed wood from old barns slated for demolition reduces the overall embodied energy of the floor, eliminates the need to harvest new trees, and provides the home with a beautiful design element.

Read more about the Green Life Smart Life project.

Posted on March 27, 2009 at 02:17 PM in Green Building • (0) Comments
One of the “greenest” homes in the country will have Carlisle reclaimed wood floors

Posted by Christine Halvorson
install the floor themselves. Shanon says they told her the process was a whole lot easier than they had imagined. (Shanon says she loves it when she hears that.)
Shanon says, "One of the greatest parts about this house is the meticulous detail that Cheryl and Marc paid to building the most green, energy efficient home."

So green, in fact, that the home will be going toward LEED Certification, one of the first in New Hampshire .

Cheryl and Marc felt Carlisle would be an ideal fit for their project because of our Forestry Stewardship Council Certification for 100 percent post-Consumer Reclaimed Antique Wood flooring. (Some companies offer FSC Certification, but their floors might only be 25 or 50 percent post-consumer.) Every stick in the floor Cheryl and Marc chose was reclaimed. They were also solid wood, not laminate, and so will last a lifetime. They also chose to have Carlisle finish the floors with CArlisle Amber Custom Coat Finish, a ZERO-VOC finish created exclusively for us. We were also able to recommend several adhesives for the floors that were "low emission." Finally, Cheryl and Marc liked the idea that our business was in Stoddard, not so far away from their home in Portsmouth, NH.

The wood used to make Cheryl and March's floor was actually reclaimed from the Claremont Riding Academy Built in New York City in the 1800s. So, the floor was exatraced and manufactured within 270 miles of their home! Shanon says it's amazing to think of the history of the trees that first became the Claremont Riding Academy and now they're a floor that is the backdrop of this fabulous LEED Home.

We'll try to give you updates all along from Cheryl and Marc as they showcase their masterpiece.

Read More…

Posted on March 25, 2009 at 01:08 PM in Green Building • (0) Comments
Meet Carlisle folks at the Residential Design and Construction Show in Boston?

Posted by Christine Halvorson

Anybody in the greater Boston area should be sure to come on down to the Seaport World Trade Center there April 1 or 2 and talk floors with us! Public hours are 4 to 8 p.m., April 1 and 4 to 7 p.m. April 2. Carlisle folks will be in booth #353. Once again, we partner with our friends at Crown Point Cabinetry in providing floors for their booths and they provide cabinets for ours. You can read more about what happens at this really big show here. Homebuilder? Remodeler? This show is for you. You can meet and greet the folks who can help with your projects and get their industry-insider perspectives. It's not just exhibits, but workshops and special events. Some of those events are listed here. Admission is free, you're in the happenin' town of Boston and it's springtime! What more could anyone ask?

Posted on March 23, 2009 at 09:43 AM in News & Events • (0) Comments
Sometimes Carlisle floor projects evolve along the way

Posted by Christine Halvorson

Adam, from our Stoddard sales offices, sent along these photos one of his clients had sent of their project to install pre-finished floors in their kitchen. The floor was all 8-inch nominal widths, with a 50/50 mixture of our Two Grades. It was finished with Residential Amber Coat, with no eased edge or end-matching applied. The clients were Rona and Steven Goldfarb of West Orange, New Jersey, who had begun talking with Carlisle about their kitchen renovation last February. Adam reports they first were interested in the Chestnut chevron pattern, but as they talked, the project evolved into what you see in these photos. (Adam points out the Goldfarbs were some of the nicest people he's ever worked with!) The floor was milled down at our mill in Swanzey, New Hampshire, and Adam sends a shout-out to them for doing such a great job.

Posted on March 20, 2009 at 07:29 AM in Hardwood Flooring • (0) Comments