“Have you ever been to Safeway?”

Chances are, you’ve seen and walked on luxury vinyl flooring more often than you’d know. This resilient flooring is used in a variety of commercial settings such as your local grocery store, florist, or coffee shop. Photos from one of our suppliers, Karndean, show an example of settings you can see luxury vinyl flooring in. Homeowners looking for a more durable flooring option are choosing to install it in their homes.

There’s a lot of baggage that comes with the word vinyl. The mere mention of the word often brings up images of tacky colours and a surface that discolours before it wears out. But vinyl isn’t like that anymore. Today’s luxury vinyl flooring is designed to replicate the look and feel of associated products such as hardwood or tile but without the drawbacks of each. Luxury vinyl flooring comes in two forms, long rectangular planks or square tiles. Its often referred to as luxury vinyl plank or luxury vinyl tile.

Benefits of luxury vinyl flooring include:

Durability: LVT is scratch resistant and doesn’t crack.

Quiet and warm: It’s quiet, warm, and comfortable underfoot.

Low maintenance: No varnishing, sealing, or waxing is required. LVT looks great with minimal cleaning effort.

Moisture resistance: Spills can be removed easily without damaging the floor.

Realism: Products that look impossible to tell apart from the surface imitated. Printing technologies even allow our suppliers to create tiles with actual tactile texture.

Luxury vinyl tile adds the beauty of hardwood or tile but with more performance. It’s the perfect solution for areas with high traffic, kids, dogs or high moisture. Style does not have to be sacrificed to get durable flooring.

A little bit of MIRA history: MIRA’s three owners are originally from Manitoba. Kevin and James once lived in Winnipeg, and Lyndon lived just outside of Winnipeg.

Though MIRA supports the Canucks (one look at the office during playoff season proves it), there was equal excitement in the office around the newest Canadian addition to the NHL. Much anticipation surrounded the release of new information about the the new Winnipeg Jets.

We want to know what you think of the new Winnipeg Jets logo. Love it? Hate it? Let us know!

On June 24th, the MIRA team headed out on a day trip with REO Rafting. We had planned to take a trip up the Fraser Canyon to
visit REO’s resort on the Nahatlatch River. But a day before the trip we were alerted that the Nahatlatch River was dangerously high and made the decision to take a trip down the Coquihalla river instead.

For many members of the team, this was their first whitewater rafting experience and it did not disappoint. While some people were being held back by the team to avoid falling out of the boat, others chose to go swimming in the cold waters. But by the end of the trip everyone was thoroughly drenched and wondering when they could take another trip to tackle more challenging rapids.

Nahatlatch, we’ll see you next year!

On Friday afternoon, the MIRA team hosted a barbecue to celebrate the hardwork and dedication of our installers. The installers, the office team, family and even pets came out to enjoy a burger, music, and good company. Despite experiencing an unseasonably cold and wet June, on Friday the rain held off and the sun even peaked out from behind the clouds for a few minutes to give us good barbeque weather.

Thank you to everyone who put organized the event and those who came out. See you next time!

Flooring samples allow you to envision how the colour and texture will look in your space. Without seeing the whole picture, it’s often challenging to imagine how the sample will look with preexisting paint, window coverings, or furniture. We encourage customers to take the sample into the space where the flooring will be installed.

 
Keeping the sample for 24 hours allows you to view how the flooring will look in both natural and artificial light. By viewing the samples in as many situations as possible, you’ll be prepared when you see the installed floor

A couple notes about samples:

• Variations between samples and installed flooring may exist. Samples are designed to represent the colour and texture of the flooring. Each piece is unique within its own dye lot and may vary slightly from the sample.
• Samples are not necessarily stain resistant. It’s tempting to throw a glass of red wine on a carpet sample to see how well it will resist the stain, but these are experiments are highly discouraged. Not all samples will have stain resistance built into them like the installed carpet will.
• Treat samples with respect. Future customers deserve to view the samples in the same pristine condition you received them in.
• Feel free to ask to keep the sample for an extended period of time. We’d rather you take the time to test it out now, then be unhappy later because your new floor doesn’t look right with your sofa.