Welcome back to the Pro Source podcast. My name is Mollie and today we are inviting on one of our trade pro members from Prosource of Omaha on the podcast. Owen Dewey. Owen Dewey is the owner of DFC flooring. DFC Flooring Specialist is a family owned and operated business. Owen’s father started the business in 1994 and Owen has joined the business to continue their legacy of offering over 30 years of expert industry experience.
They help their clients install carpet, vinyl, LVP and laminate flooring professionally by certified installers and skilled craftsmen. Let's go ahead and welcome on Owen onto The ProSource podcast. So today we have on one of our trade pro, Owen Dewey. He is the owner of DFC Flooring Specialists out of Omaha, Nebraska. Owen, thank you so much for coming on today. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. What made you want to start your own business? So basically, family company.
My dad started it, actually, in 94. We kind of traveled from, you know, we're from Pennsylvania originally. I travel around. My family landed here in Omaha, and, my dad had some experience in carpet and flooring and in Pennsylvania with his family business out there. So he brought it here. So I've been doing flooring installation since, 94 and been buying it from him since the start of this year. So that's awesome. Yeah, for a long time. Yeah, I've grown up in the industry and. Yeah.
Absolutely. So doing well. That's awesome. And how do you, mostly work with, do you work with, would you say like homeowners more so or like commercial. So it's fluctuated over the years? But yes, I think we deal with more contractors and builders more than anything. We do work with homeowners directly. And, and we do remodels and things like that. For sure. But I think right now most of our work is coming from a contractor. A builder or even, designers.
Gotcha. That's awesome. So today's episode, we're really focusing on flooring, which is great because the flooring is perfect for this episode. How long, have you been a member of ProSource and how has ProSource helped support you and your clients? Sure. So DFC flooring, like I said, was here in 94 and Omaha. I think Prosource came to Omaha 94, maybe 95.
I might be off right there, but, I just talked to my dad a little bit about it, and he was actually in the Omaha area, and Prosource had called him and saying, hey, we're coming in. Here's what we do. Here's who we are. Are you interested in becoming a member? And so he was my dad was one of the first members at Prosource of Omaha. Oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah. So a long time, then. Yeah. We've had a great relationship. Yeah. With preservation.
So is there any, like, specific, ways that ProSource helps DFC flooring? Maybe more so than others? I mean, the biggest thing I think is the showroom. Yeah, the salesmen are experts. And what they have the product that they have, and then the showroom paired with, you know, the knowledgeable salesman is it's really easy to work with Prosource send a customer, anybody. They don't know what they want yet. You know, they call us. They got our name from a friend, a neighbor, whatever.
We go out there and you talk about their project. I give them some ideas. I tell them there's only a million options out there. So. So so I prosource talk to the salesman here and, you know, tell them exactly what told me. I want something in the Grays, you know, or the Browns or whatever. And they'll help limit the millions of options down to a few that you're going to really like. Yeah, that's the big thing is it's very overwhelming sometimes for people going into the showroom like that.
Yeah. So having someone there to kind of dwindle their options down for you, really helps because I know that's been not a complaint, but, something that people talk about is they'll bring homeowners in and they just like their eyes are like, I don't know where to look because there's so much. There's too much in your face.
Yeah. Exactly. Encourage customers. Google things come up, bring up like the pictures and inspirational photos that you that you like, and then the sales are more easily able to pull something off the shelf. You know, who knows where to go get those and show you what. And then you can determine, you know what actually, I saw that I kind of like that. But yeah, they'll they'll be able to limit your options for you and not make it so overwhelming.
But yes. Yeah. If you want to look, there's, you know, there's a ton of things to look at there at the, in the showroom a lot of time. And they're certainly good. Yeah. So laminate flooring hasn't always had the best reputation. What feedback have you heard about laminate flooring from home homeowners or anyone you work with? Looking to replace their floors?
Back in the day, when it was first come out, I guess there's trying to be, in competition to a wood floor or a comparable to a for a more economical, cheaper version of a wood floor, to get the same look. But it's, it's struggle with certain different things. So the biggest thing I know with people with laminate from, you know, two decades ago nowadays are like, I don't want laminate because it, you know, it was I had in my bathroom, I had in my kitchen and, and the water was a huge issue.
And so that's been something that we've heard from homeowners a lot with laminate. Now. Limits come a long ways. Running right behind it and trying to be more waterproof, water resistant and limit might be a more economical choice. Maybe it's a little bit cheaper than on outlet, but it still doesn't quite have all the yeah, the benefits of let and not not quite as durable, but the reputation is as it's always kind of been. It's a laminate. It's a look alike wood but not quite wood.
And that's what people kind of want a what else can I get? What else? Yeah. There's the questions I get asked. Know for sure. I think it goes down to, you know, if you want the higher quality product, like you're going to most of the time you're going to have to spend more money, right? If you're looking to maybe just do like a house flip or a quick remodel. Exactly. Could be a good option for people looking to do that.
But I'd say if you're a homeowner, investing into the better quality flooring is always going to be the best option, right? Yeah, I always tell them, you know, if you get what you pay for, you know, and it really is true in in flooring, I mean, as far even as the material, you know. Yeah. Yes. Prices are going up everywhere across, you know, everywhere. But you really still get what you pay for.
You know, you want to buy something that's going to last you, you're going to invest a little bit of money into it. So yeah. Yeah. And if you want to end up working with, like you said, having flooring issues down the line, like in 20 years, you're going to rip up the flooring and see that there is a bunch of like, mold. I know my my grandparents just had that issue actually with laminate. So it's funny, we're talking about it.
You know, I don't even know if they even picked the flooring that initially went to that house, but my mom just had to redo all of their flooring. Because there was a bunch of mold underneath. Like in the bathroom by the shower. Yeah, yeah. Going back to your point, there's always a time and a place for flooring. Like for laminate flooring, I would say. And it's not for everybody. It's not for every situation. How have you seen the laminate installation process evolve over time?
The installation process, it used to be you know, we used to have these straps and these clamps and we'd have to glue all the edges and clamp everything together and hold all together. It's still a floating floor back in the day, but it was all glued together. And you know, it's a couple day process versus now it's a lot like. And how it works. It clicks together with the tongue and groove and it locks itself together.
So yeah, it has come a long ways in that aspect, and it makes it a lot easier to install than it ever used to be. Yeah, probably a bit more DIY. Certainly. I would say we kind of already touched on this a little bit. But in what situations do you think it's not ideal to use laminate compared to other types of flooring besides just your typical house flips? Someone trying to just flip a house, sell it? We know that happens.
Are there any other situations you could see maybe someone would want to go with laminate compared to other types of flooring? Yeah, no laminate has. It's not a terrible floor by any means. There's, there's there's something that's very comparable and maybe just a pinch more that I feel like would be a a lot more worth your, your dollar. Yeah. But in situations where like, it's just one room, maybe not like, like a formal dining, we don't really have those anymore. Every once you open concept.
But if you have a formal dining room and you just need to update the flooring in there, you don't want to spend a ton of money. Laminate would be perfect in there. You know it would go with you know, there's there's a ton of colors and sizes and everything nowadays. So it would be perfect in a room that I would think wouldn't be your main source of foot traffic. Gotcha. And maybe not where there's like a bunch of water, like the bathroom you're talking about.
Yeah, I know that. That makes a ton of sense. So with a focus on style in mind, how have you seen laminate become more fashionable in the home over the years? Some of the, complaints I've heard is like it. It's, for mica. Look, it looks very dull and boring. So they've come a long ways with their printing or the finished look looks more like a wood floor now than it ever has before. Not so fake. Not so like a printed color. It's more of a natural looking wood color.
So. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen that. And then the sizes, you know, you know, how wide is the plank? They're thin and thick and gives you a little bit more variety. So I feel like back years ago, if I remember, if you would look like it was just like wallpaper on the flooring, that's kind of what it would look like. And now they're really, I feel like with new technology, you can see there is more of like a texture. It looks like there's texture, it looks like a wood floor, even though it's not.
Yeah, definitely come a long way. What are some of your favorite current trends in flooring in general? So not even focusing just on laminate but other kinds of flooring as well. What are your favorite trends right now? I really enjoy that.
They're exploring like, chevron looks or herringbone looks and things like that, because that was something that maybe like a wood floor would have on, laminate or other hard surfaces, even tile, you can, you can position those into different designs and things like that where these click together floors are just straight across. They're just left to right and install which looks, you know, it's timeless, it's gorgeous.
You know, it fits 99% of spaces, but you don't get that little extra design feature sometimes. And so that's one of my one of the things I like about them trying. They do have herringbone like click together floors. You know there's an A and B and you got to get them in there. Right. They do have Chevron looking floors now. So I mean I really enjoy that. I like the like the light they're putting everywhere that, you know, wood floors.
You should just be main level, maybe just entry and dining and kitchen kind of thing. Now we're putting it everywhere. The whole main floor bedroom is included. Even the stairs, you know, it's stairs are, you know, look amazing with a hard surface on it. And maybe even a stair runner or something up a carpet runner. But walls, you know, we can install some of these floors on the walls. Yeah. So you wouldn't, you know, it just gives it a something a little different.
And, it's an extra challenge, I guess, for an installers perspective. It's it's kind of fun figuring out, well, how am I going to get this to go vertical, even like tile right now. You can put up put that anywhere backsplash, wall flooring anywhere you would like. So what advice would you offer homeowners or anyone that is looking for a floor that holds trends like herringbone? Like you mentioned, and those rectangular designs, they're gorgeous, but they're not for every situation.
That would be my biggest thing. So they're not the layout. But yeah, so we don't want like in the photo they're looking at their inspiration photo. Google. Those are perfect examples of exactly what that for is designed for or supposed to look like. But not everybody's space is willing to accept, you know, a herringbone floor.
Because sometimes we might have these little tiny cuts, these little tiny pieces along the wall or, you know, there's there's there's two hallways or two ways around the island and one's going to look centered, and the other one's going to look like, well, it's kind of. Yeah. So I guess the idea is really cool, but it might not fit every single, you know, space. Yeah, the idea is neat. Listen to some professionals and get some ideas that way.
But, you know, maybe you could do a like an inlay or something of the herringbone or add it in a different room. If you wanted that look. And this comes up a lot too, when we're talking about like bathroom remodels and homeowners wanting to put in like specific showers and bathtubs, but they have like a wall sticking out that's like, do you want to knock that wall down to put this in? Because that's a whole other project, right? Yeah.
And that's what it comes down to flooring sometimes too, like you mentioned, if there's obstacles in the way of that flooring, it's like, do you want to knock this wall down to put that in, or do you want to just exact something else? Well, and some of the biggest complaints about all floating floors is the transition pieces. People really don't like them. They're ugly. There's there's some that some manufacturers make really good ones that are very minimal.
But that's the other thing to keep in mind. We have to break some of these sometimes, and it just might not be the clean look you're looking for. It's a pretty product. It's got the cool design, you want it, but you're going to have these awkward, weird little transitions here and there. And it might not come out as you're expecting. Yeah, absolutely. In your opinion, when it comes to durability, what flooring would you recommend overall durability.
When we're talking floating floors I suppose so. So everything you do against like a wood floor, if we're talking like you have pets. You have dogs? Yeah. Big dogs, a wood floor. You're going to see the intense. I said, scratching the surface. But they're indenting the wood, kind of growing your fingers through the sand. And so the light reflects off of that, and you can see that indent forever. There's nothing you can really do.
You replace the boards. But yeah, the dogs are around for ten years, so it's not going to be fixed anyway. Yeah, I know, but for you know, is a little more resilient. It'll hold up against some of those indents. The you won't see the scratches, they won't scratch it nearly as easy. And they certainly won't indent it like a wood floor. Now it doesn't make it 100% scratch proof. And my, you know, experience, you can't push your fridge across that sideways and expect it not to scratch the floor.
Now, some laminates I do know have a different surface, maybe not quite the textured or, you know, they're maybe a little bit smoother. And it, it would be, it might fight against the scratch a little bit more than an lt would but I do know like it laminate might chip in the corners a little bit easier. It's a little bit more rigid. Doesn't have so much give into it like an Lt forward. So yeah it's first the ability.
There's there's a give and take and I think lt takes that takes the cake though as far as all the way around, it's pretty durable. It can go in wet locations and, you know, it floats against the foot traffic, the rocks coming in on your feet in the winter, the pets. So I just, I would say like hardwood especially, we have hardwood in our home and we, have a dog, a senior dog.
So we try to keep them away from the hardwood when we're not home in case there is an accident, because it is hard to clean up, like you said. Certainly if we had elves, maybe that would be a little bit easier. Do you think that it depends on the brand too? Was like, are other brands better than others that come back to some of those issues?
Certainly. So I think like, talking laminate to white laminate might be a little bit more cost effective and then Lt but then in both of those there's going to be a good better best. Yeah. And the price range will reflect that as well. Certainly there are products we we really enjoy working with and they're all product. It's like yeah okay. It'll be yeah it'll work. We'll get it out. But yeah. So with your experiences in mind, how has ProSource helped elevate flooring for your clients?
Yeah. So like we talked about earlier, just being able to have that showroom available, you know the options. Yeah. All the options. So anybody that calls DFC, anybody that I talk to that needs ideas and needs some flooring, it's very easy to talk to them about, you know, what they need, what they can do. I see the space you know, give them options on you know, sometimes we, you know, like a floor might need to be flattened or something.
And you know, maybe a floating floor might not be the best option. Or maybe it is. Regardless, maybe we just put carpet in there. Doesn't matter. Send them to ProSource. I'll have a conversation with a customer. They can have ideas. At least walk into ProSource tell that, salesman what they're thinking, what we discussed, and, you know, they got the whole showroom to take a look at and to come up with an idea of what they, what they want to put in their space.
So, yeah, again, the knowledgeable salesman and the showroom is huge, makes things very easy. And so within like the last 20 or 30 years, sustainability has definitely come to the forefront. And a lot of brands and a lot of the decision making when it comes to doing a home remodel, do you see that in your clients that is at the forefront of their decision making?
A lot of the time, a lot of the times we do, in my experience, because like I said, we deal with a lot of contractors and builders, so let's bring it home that, you know, these homeowners don't want their flooring to, you know, be nothing in a year or two. They want it to last a decade. It's supposed to last. So they want to protect their investment. There are those, you know, the home flippers.
It's kind of a big fan of it now, too, that they just want to just spin it quick and, you know, so they might not be looking at that nearly as closely, but I'd say 90% of the customers that I talk to, you know, because everybody's spending money, no matter what it is, whether it'll be a little or a lot, they don't want it to they don't want be spending more money on that floor again anytime soon. Yeah. And what about, like, like eco friendly products?
Is that something a lot of people think about? Or are you maybe just a small group of your clients are considered? Maybe a small group? Yeah. Nobody ever comes out and says that we do. Yeah. Like we recycle our pad and they're like, oh that's nice. Yeah, that's all they know. So yeah, nobody specifically asked. I might have 1 or 2 people a year maybe. Yeah. So what do you do with all this, Tara? What do you do with this or what do you know.
That's, you know, maybe, you know, a little bit more eco friendly. So there are companies out there that are a lot really focused on that. And those customers already have found those suppliers maybe, and things like that. Yeah. Before they find us, I would say even like a lot of brands are already focusing on that.
Right. So I agree, I feel like in today's world, a lot of homeowners, your clients are probably already thinking like, okay, engineered floors, they're already thinking about the eco friendly side of things or whatever brand it is. So that's probably a lot of it to a lot of people probably aren't going to come out and say it. They're just assuming that the brands have the best intention.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So heading into 2025, which is crazy to think about, are there any technological advancements that we should be keeping an eye out for in the world of flooring that you are thinking about? I like the that they're challenging, the industry, the elevators and the maintenance of floating floors. They're they're getting giant sizes. And in smaller sizes they're, they're adding like a ceramic coating on the top or making a stone top.
And I think that's, that's always very encouraging to continue to be challenging the industry. Challenging. You know, what are the limitations of some of this flooring and what other designs can we come up with? And so I don't I don't see that slowing down at all. You see them continuing to the, you know, work on that and see what else they can come up with. And one of the cool designs or other cool features that can they add to this, this floating floor especially.
That is all the craze right now. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially in the world of like social media. If you if you do have something wrong with your product, people are going to be really quick to go online and bash it so fast. Yeah. And yes. And yeah, that's the last thing these brands want, right? They want to be able to be a competition because yeah word of mouth is everything. So yeah I completely agree with you there.
I think it's going to keep flooring is just going to keep changing and advancing as there's other competition coming against certain brands. So yeah. Yeah, healthy competition is great especially in our industry here. Yes, absolutely. Well thank you so much for coming on today, Owen. Absolutely. We really appreciate you sharing your expertise. And yeah, just participating in today's episode. Thank you so much and my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Okay. Thank you.
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