Thank you to Floor & Decor for sponsoring this post! All opinions are my own. I’m sharing my thoughts about working with the company in this post. I hope you find it useful if you’re in the market for tile or flooring. 🙂
PICKING TILE AT FLOOR & DECOR
Hey everyone! Today I’m doing a little spotlight of one of our sponsors for the One Room Challenge—Floor & Decor! When I decided we wanted to do our master bathroom for the challenge, I knew that I wanted to find a good company to work with for all of the re-tiling we wanted to do. At that point, I had three considerations in mind:
- I wasn’t really sure what direction I wanted to take the bathroom (even though I had approximately 1,000,000 inspiration photos saved). So I needed to find a company that had a very wide selection.
- I wanted to work with a company that had a showroom so I could actually see, touch, and play around with the tiles. I’m not a huge fan of ordering things like that online without seeing them first.
- Finding a company with a wide variety of options for every price point was critical because I won’t work with a sponsor that I wouldn’t personally use as a consumer. I don’t want you to see a sponsor on here and be like, “yeah, must be nice to work with them, but no one can really afford that.”
Floor & Decor met all of these considerations. And I’m thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with them and share my experience with you. If you’re looking to do any new flooring or re-tiling in your home, I’m about to drop a novel on you about why you should use Floor & Decor. 🙂
ABOUT FLOOR & DECOR
Floor & Decor offers the broadest in-stock selection of tile, wood, stone, and related tools and flooring accessories in the hard surface flooring market. Although their stores look like warehouses, they are open to both homeowners and professional contractors.
In my store, they have a showroom area in the front, but they also have a pro desk tucked in the back, much like the Home Depot or Lowe’s pro desk. On top of the awesome in-stock selection, Floor and Decor sources directly from manufacturers or quarries. So the company is able to price its items lower than its competitors.
One thing that I didn’t learn on the store tour but noticed on the website is the company’s commitment to global responsibility. This is especially important because Floor & Decor sources from worldwide quarries and manufacturers. The company only does business with suppliers and partners who do not permit the use of child, forced, or involuntary labor in any operations.
They expect suppliers to treat their employees with dignity and respect and to provide them proper pay and a clean, safe, and healthy workplace. Floor & Decor employees are encouraged to report violations of this policy. I always try to support companies that have morals, so this was awesome to learn.
THE STORE EXPERIENCE
I did a store tour at the Gaithersburg, MD location with the store manager Benjamin, and it was really informative. First impression when you walk in the door: this place is massive. Tile of all different types, stone, and wood, laminate, and vinyl flooring. Floor & Decor seems pretty in tune with customer needs in various markets, too.
Although the company is a nationwide chain, store managers and chief executive merchants are empowered to tailor their locations’ supply based on demand. For example, during my store tour, the manager explained that the selection in the Gaithersburg store is a little bit different than it is in the nearby Virginia store.
Each Floor & Decor also has in-store designers to help you make your choices. My location has two full-time designers on staff, and I worked with Martrelle. Since I went tile hunting alone, it was really helpful to be able to bounce ideas off of her to whittle my choices down. If she was annoyed by how indecisive I was, she didn’t let it show 😉
The stores also have big carts so you can pick up samples as you walk around. Just find one of the many design stations so you can lay out your samples to see how they look together. (I can imagine this would be pretty hectic on a weekend; I went on a weeknight and it was awesome.)
THE BUYING PROCESS
Speaking of indecisive, the buying process is awesome for those of us who need to buy 30 options and then sleep on them for two weeks. That’s because Floor & Decor sells by the piece. Meaning you can buy a few pieces of the tile you like to bring home.
Then, when you’ve made your decision, simply bring back all of these sample pieces to return them. I did this twice, and each time was really easy. Since they encourage buying samples, the return process is a well-oiled machine. I rolled a cart in, gave the cashier my phone number, and that was that. Super easy.
Once you choose your tile and buy it, you can buy it by the box. However, since the pieces are individually priced, you can bring back and return what you don’t use! Isn’t that awesome? So if you buy 3 boxes that each have 10 pieces, and you only end up needed 21 pieces, you can return the 9 pieces from the third box.
This is an awesome option if you’re trying to keep your budget as low as possible. And you don’t have to worry about buying too much and wasting money.
Since Floor & Decor is a full-service operation, we were also able to pick up all of the installation supplies we needed. (New to installing? Check out their installation page for free workshops!) My dad, who is a licensed contractor, already has a wet saw that we used. But we had to buy all of the other less-fun tiling supplies: adhesive, grout, cleaning supplies, etc.
If you’re looking for inspiration, make sure to check out Floor & Decor’s Design Services page, which includes room and style galleries. You can look up a store near you here. Happy shopping, and I’ll be back soon with an update on installing our tile. I can’t wait. Thanks again to Benjamin, Martrelle, and everyone else at the Gaithersburg, MD location for all of the assistance!
Brittany is a seasoned DIY home and garden expert, running a creative brand since 2014 that inspires others with approachable plant care guides, woodworking tutorials, and decor projects. She is a certified project manager and has completed extensive coursework in the art and science of growing your own plants. Her work has been recognized by major publications, and she routinely collaborates with fellow DIY industry leaders—but her favorite thing to do is inspire you! Learn more about her here.
What a great selection they have and I love your choice. Look forward to following along on your renovation.
That store is massive, I’d love to spend a day shopping there!
I SO wish we had a Floor and Decor here! What a great selection! So so in love with your grey tiles!
Thanks Brittany! This place sounds great. I am thinking about installing ceramic tile in my kitchen. I like that fact that they let you return the portion of boxes that you don’t end up using! I don’t know anywhere else you can do this.
Yep, the return policy makes it awesome if you’re trying to keep your budget as low as possible!
Can’t wait to see it in place!! That’s awesome they have such a great return policy, both with their samples and with unused tile pieces!
Yep! It’s a nice way to eliminate waste too. What would you do with a few extra pieces of tile? Probably just throw them away…or they’d be cluttering up my garage.
Looks great! Can’t wait to see the finished product!
Thank you <3
I could spend hours browsing in this store! I’m sure I’ll be asking you for tips when we finally buy a place.
Yep, I didn’t dare even walk over into the wood flooring section because I do not need any more projects right now 🙂
That place is huge! I wish I had one near me just to browse around! Good luck!
Can’t wait to see the finished product. My roommate and I were thinking about re-doing our bathroom. Those boxes look heavy.
I’m glad I had someone strong to help carry them up two flights of stairs. 🙂