There’s no place like home,” says Patrick Williams, president of WCCV Floor Coverings in Stow.
Williams has noticed that people are spending more time at home. That makes him happy, because in doing so, they’re spending more money on their home environment.
“They’re individualizing their homes because it makes them feel good,” Williams says.
Capitalizing on the condition, Williams is staking a claim on a trend known as laser cut, custom inlay medallions.
“It’s one way to differentiate myself — in regard to my business — from my competitors,” Williams says. “This is a niche that has some prestige to it.”
While inlay medallions have only recently become popular, Williams says his second-generation family firm was a pioneer in the process.
“Growing up in my parents’ business, we’d always done some handmade, custom medallions,” he says. “Then, at my first flooring convention in 1994, I learned that such designs were predicted to become very popular. It was the perfect niche for us because we were already dealing with custom stained hardwood floors.”
Williams says his decision to inlay two medallions — a golfer and a pheasant — in his new showroom set sales into motion, because when people came into the store, the medallions merited more than a glance.
“Customers started coming in to choose a design, or bringing their own designs for us to create, manufacture and install. It really personalizes their residence,” Williams says.
When designing a medallion, Williams says he considers the grains, colors and characteristics of 12 different species of wood. Parts of the design are cut using a laser. The pieces are fit together, like a jigsaw puzzle, and adhered to a backing.
The medallion is then anchored flush into a customer’s existing hardwood floor by a professional installer, or built into a new hardwood floor.
With today’s laser applications and the use of computers, a medallion inlay can be accomplished in less than three days, Williams says.
“It depends on the size of the job, but if it’s an existing floor, we could install it in one day, plus the sand and finish time.”
The least expensive medallion WCCV has in stock goes for about $1,200, he says. And the most expensive?
“Let your mind go with the possibilities. It all depends on the number of species of wood and how intricate the detail.
“In order to put something very custom and ornate into their homes, people have to be able to afford it,” Williams adds. “They have to want to afford it. And that’s the type of customer and clientele I was trying to draw.”
WCCV — which Williams says is the largest hardwood flooring company in Northeast Ohio and the solo showroom that displays site-finished floors in its own environment — has been chosen as a feature floor covering contractor and showroom for fall episodes of the Home and Garden Television’s “Room by Room.”
How to reach: WCCV, 688-0114 or www.wccv.com