Despite the conflicting predictions of the various celebrity groundhogs around the country the fact is spring will officially arrive March 20 when the Vernal Equinox takes place.

If we’re not growing, we’re dying,” noted Kieth Spano, president of Flooring America/Flooring Canada (FA/FC), as the co-op kicked off it’s 2015 winter “conneXtion,” a named the group coined last year to emphasize the many ways and areas members are connected to each other, their suppliers and, most of all, their customers.

Thirty years ago, three industry veterans—Howard Brodsky, Sandy Mishkin and the late Alan Greenberg—got together and put a business plan together for a retailer-owned cooperative designed to give the independent dealer a chance to level the playing field against the larger, national players in the industry.

It’s one thing to say you are “awesome,” it’s another to be it and for 2015 Shaw Industries is telling—and showing—dealers and consumers reasons why the company and its products are just that: Awesome

Spurred by two consecutive years of positive sales—something most in the industry hadn’t seen for more than seven years—both exhibitors and attendees at The International Surface Event (TISE) in Las Vegas were filled with an optimistic spirit for the coming year.

Few consumers will deny their love of scrunching their toes into a nice piece of fuzzy carpet.

Mohawk Industries announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the IVC Group—which includes the company’s Dalton operations consisting of its U.S. headquarters, a sheet vinyl factory and a state-of-the-art luxury vinyl tile (LVT) plant that is coming online.

There’s an old saying: Changes are permanent, but change is.

The following is the first in a series of retailer and contractor forums Floor Trends is doing over the course of the year.

OK, so 2014 wasn’t as fantastic a year as most hoped. That doesn’t mean it was a bad year.