What 50 years taught us about choosing the right floor

When a business has been helping people choose flooring since 1975, you accumulate a lot of knowledge. Not just about products — but about people, about homes, and about the mistakes that are entirely avoidable if you just know what to look for.

In honor of Three Rivers Decorating's 50th anniversary, we're sharing the most important lessons five decades in this business have taught us. Consider this the advice we wish every customer walked in the door already knowing.

Buy for how you actually live, not how you wish you lived

This is the single biggest mistake we see. A customer falls in love with a light-colored carpet, but they have three kids and a muddy dog. Or they choose a beautiful hardwood-look floor for a basement that gets moisture in spring. The floor that looks best in the showroom isn't always the floor that works best in your home.

Before you ever look at a single product, be honest about your household. How many people live there? Do you have pets? Kids? Do you take shoes off at the door? Is the room above grade or below? The right floor for your life will always outlast the floor you fell in love with in the showroom.

Installation quality matters as much as product quality

We've seen premium products fail because of poor installation, and modest products last decades because they were put in correctly. Flooring is not a DIY project to take lightly. Subfloor preparation, acclimation time, proper adhesives, and clean seams — these details are what separate a floor that looks great for 20 years from one that starts to lift and buckle after two.

When you hire a professional installer, you're not just paying for labor. You're paying for the knowledge of what can go wrong — and the experience to make sure it doesn't.

Cheap upfront is almost never cheap in the long run

We understand budgets are real. But the math on flooring is straightforward: a floor that lasts 25 years at $4/sq ft costs you far less over time than a floor that needs replacing in 8 years at $2/sq ft. Factor in the cost of removal, disposal, and reinstallation — and the "budget" option often ends up costing significantly more.

Our advice: buy the best product you can afford in the rooms that take the most traffic. Save on secondary spaces like guest bedrooms or storage rooms where wear is minimal.

Don't skip the in-person selection process

Screens lie. Colors on a monitor or phone look completely different under your home's lighting conditions. We've had countless customers order samples based on online photos only to be surprised — sometimes pleasantly, sometimes not — when they see it in person.

Come into the showroom. Take samples home. Look at them in the room where they'll be installed, at different times of day. This single step prevents more buyer's remorse than anything else we know.

The relationship matters

Three Rivers has survived 50 years because customers keep coming back. Not just because our products are good — but because they trust the people behind the counter. When something goes wrong (and occasionally, something does), you want to be working with a local business that picks up the phone and makes it right.

That accountability is what you get when you work with a family-owned, community-based store. It's what Al Meyer built in 1975. It's what Rick and Carolyn preserved for 40 years. And it's what Dawn and I are committed to carrying forward.

Here's to 50 more years of getting it right — together.

— Jake & Dawn Kubela, Owners, Three Rivers Decorating