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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.

Helping Green Living Smart Living Take the LEED

  • Posted by
  • Chad Cassin

When Kimberly and Joe Hageman decided to build a state-of-the-art LEED-H certified green home on the Rhode Island coast, they researched both cutting-edge new technologies and various companies that had long been known for supplying green products.

Carlisle Wide Plank Floors of Stoddard, New Hampshire, and its 100% FSC Certified Antique Reclaimed Flooring quickly became part of the mix. Working closely with the owners, Carlisle found just the right old barn, which had been slated for demolition, carefully dismantled it and a created gorgeous wide plank milled barnwood from the re-milled timbers. It covers almost half of the home’s 4,400 square feet and qualified for full LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) H points.

“Carlisle became one of our favorite partners,” says Kimberly. “They really care about getting everything right and have a long history of green environmental practices.”

Carlisle President Don Carlisle adds, “All our floors are custom crafted one board at a time, utilizing either newly sawn wood harvested from sustainably managed forests or true antique timbers from structures that would otherwise be demolished. We’re the number one supplier of FSC Certified Antique Reclaimed Wood in North America, and opting to use this precious commodity reduces the overall embodied energy of a floor and puts less stress on our natural resources. Plus, you get a wonderful look and feel that resonates like no other floor.”

The home, which took well over a year to complete, isn’t merely a living residence. It is a showcase home offering a hands-on demonstration site where builders, architects, designers, schools, members of the media and the general public are invited to tour and learn about all the latest innovations in eco-friendly sustainable living.

Foremost among the home’s features is an energy control system that uses various sensors to constantly monitor energy usage and maximize efficiencies. A geothermal system will provide all the home’s heating and cooling, via a 1,000-foot well. Small wonder that the home has already received strong endorsements from the green press and trade publications that cater to the construction and design industries.

An open house for the public will be held Saturday, December 12 that will feature tours and demonstrations. For details, contact Ashley Daigneault at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

About Carlisle Wide Plank Floors

Carlisle Wide Plank Floors® is a unique wood flooring company. First and foremost, every Carlisle floor is custom—literally created one board at a time, tailored for each specific customer, by skilled New England craftsmen. As such, it is an authentic representation of an American folk art—a family heirloom to be treasured for generations.
Secondly, we are a family operation, started in the early 1960s by Dale Carlisle, who made floors by first making friends. And we were green before green was popular. Now run by Dale’s son Don, we remain that way today. In fact, we think of our customers as part of our extended family—a family that also includes small, local saw mills, and sawyers who share our commitment to quality, plus second and third generation foresters and antique barn and mill reclaimers who share our ideals in preserving the environment.

About Green Life Smart Life

The RI-based Green Life Smart Life project was created to demonstrate real-life applications in creating sustainable living and healthy environments in conjunction with custom electronics that embrace today’s smart home technology. A showcase of the latest advances in green building techniques and environmentally friendly materials alongside innovative technologies for complete home control and state-of-the art entertainment, the Green Life Smart Life project is showing homeowners the full range of just how attainable smart and green living can be.

Posted on Nov 09, 2009 AT 05:27 AM in News & Events • (3) Comments

Beautful floor, with just one bucket of waste

  • Posted by
  • Christine Halvorson

Customer Sally Smith sent along these photes of a recent remodeling job she did with Carlisle’s pre-finished original Hickory, in 5- to 10-inch widths. This is the third floor Sally has done with Carlisle. These photos are from her second home in the Adirondacks and their first was for their New Jersey home. The natural colorings in the wood turned out to be quite distinct down the center of Sally’s hallway. She writes: “Our friends laugh at the ‘runway strip’ we put down the center of the hallway – Dave (her husband) says if we fight there’s his half, and my half.”

What we like to see in these photos is the small, one bucket of waste that was produced with the project!

Read more about our pre-finished floors here.

Posted on Nov 09, 2009 AT 02:00 AM in (0) Comments

“Breathtakingly FANTASTIC” is what we like to hear when a customer installs a Carlisle floor

  • Posted by
  • Christine Halvorson

Jim and Colleen Woodcock found Carlisle Wide Plank Floors through our Washington D.C. showroom and sales consultant Janel Conforti there. The Woodcocks were set to install a new floor in a game room they were creating out of what was once unused space in their home. These customers turned out to be very happy with their new floor and they made a special trip back to the Washington D.C. showroom to drop off some samples so that our staff there could show them to potential customers.

The Woodcocks had ordered 525 square feet of Carlisle’s prefinished Hickory, in 5- to 10-inch widths. At first, when the floor was delivered to their home, they were quite concerned that not enough boards had been delivered. Turned out, it was fine! The installers who did the job know just what they’re doing to fit the floor with very little waste.

Jim reports, “One guy put down the glue, one guy sawed, selected and set the pieces, and the third hammered them tight and then stapled them. It must be nice for them to work with such quality product. They swiped your big catalog so with luck they may give you some future customers.”

After four months, from conception of the project to its completion with the addition of the two “retro” chairs you see in the photos, the floor is ready and being used.

Jim wrote, “And of course it looks breathtakingly FANTASTIC. The trim has not been purchased yet but the vents are so cool. We are in hog heaven walking around with big smiles.”

Learn more about Carlisle’s prefinished floors here

Posted on Nov 09, 2009 AT 01:16 AM in (0) Comments

Carlisle participates in Greenbuild show November 10 in Phoenix

  • Posted by
  • Christine Halvorson

Carlisle is gearing up for the last trade show of the year, the Greenbuild Show from Nov. 10 through 12 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, AZ.

The Carlisle booth is #5107 and will feature a floor of Old Growth Eastern White Pine with a blend of grades, 13-, 14- and 17 inch- face widths, and 7/8 inch thick, slight block planed edges. It’ll be refinished by the sample shop with Copper Mine stain, two coats of trans and two coast Satin Tung Oil, and finished with antique cut nails.

In addition, there will be an extensive display of wood panels — Brown Maple with Clear Original Satin stain, Footworn Walnut with Sturbridge Brown stain and Antique Heart Pine with super rustic stain to name just a few.

Former Vice President Al Gore will be the keynote speaker at the expo and singer Sheryl Crow will perform.

Registration information and general information about the show can be found at the Greenbuild 2009 web site.

Looking ahead a bit, Carlisle’s first show in 2010 will be the IBS/National Builders Show in Las Vegas, Jan. 19 to 22. More information on that one later.

Posted on Nov 06, 2009 AT 12:38 AM in News & Events • (0) Comments

A word about engineered floors, from Don Carlisle

  • Posted by
  • Christine Halvorson

And because our engineered boards are also the longest and widest in the industry (sound familiar?), they’re amazingly strong and stable—without the “jigsaw puzzle look” that’s typical of most engineered flooring.

Best of all, they’re right in terms of the environment. Our construction and installation adhesives are virtually VOC-and formaldehyde-free, as are our traditional Custom Coat™ stains and topcoats. So there’s no “off gassing” and degraded indoor air quality, either during installation or in the years to come.

Because Carlisle Engineered Floors are amazingly stable and moisture resistant, they are ideal for both concrete and radiant heat applications—both of which are fast-growing markets for us.

So what’s it all mean? Simply that we now are able to offer the cost-effectiveness and ease of installation which have become synonymous with engineered flooring, plus all the solid advantages that Carlisle has long been noted for.

Pretty exciting stuff, if you ask me.

Don Carlisle, president

Read more about Carlisle’s engineered floors here.

Read More…

Posted on Nov 05, 2009 AT 01:17 AM in Hardwood Flooring • (0) Comments

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