(Featured photo is the staff of Diamond Wood Floors)
When Ben Suer has the chance to allow his artistry to shine, he jumps at it.
And it often pays off.
Suer’s Diamond Wood Floors was recently recognized by the National Wood Flooring Association for a Bordeaux floor he and Joe Congleton, marketing head, created and placed into an area home.
“Every year there’s the National Wood Flooring Competition,” said Suer. “There are multiple categories. We entered in parquetry.”
The floor, containing an intricate Bordeaux pattern, received an honorable mention.
Most of the work on the floor took place at the business’s Damascus Road shop, where Suer and Congleton crafted each of the pieces individually.
“Each piece had its own measurements and had to be routed a certain way,” said Congleton.
It took about a week of prep work before the floor was ready to be installed. The installation took about a day.
“Once the puzzle pieces are cut, then you just start throwing them together,” said Suer. “It’s basically a giant rectangle.”
For the award-winning floor, the homeowners needed to bring together two floors in adjacent spaces and wanted to use the pattern to marry them.
This isn’t the first time Suer has won a flooring award. He won for best color and finish application in 2019 for a flooring medallion he created that glowed in the dark.
Suer has been in business since 2002 and does a lot of floor restoration in older homes. He focuses on the Augusta area but has worked on floors in North Carolina and other parts of Georgia and South Carolina.
As a member of the flooring association, he has certified installers on his staff and takes classes to maintain that certification. He often learns new techniques that he enjoys putting to the test.
“I live for the creative,” he said. “Every time I take on a difficult job, I get really excited. When I’m done with it, I’m banging my head against the wall, saying ‘I’ll never do it again,’ but I do.”
Many people, however, opt for standard linear wood floor installations. Sometimes, they may play with the lines by using chevron or herringbone patterns. At other times, they may make borders in their floors.
Suer said the options for floors, however, are endless.
“Maybe people don’t even think of it, or they think it’s something that’s inaccessible,” he said. “When you start looking into patterns, it can be overwhelming.”
Suer plans to move his business to McDuffie County, where he’ll have more space to create. He said he’d like to do more work with people’s entryways to make those floors stand out.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News, has covered Augusta’s news for 35 years. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
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