Phillips’ Floors Inc.

Phillips’ Floors Inc. (Phillips’ Floors) has been in business for more than 20 years, serving customers throughout Iowa. Tim Phillips established the business in 1993 with the goal of providing a range of in-house flooring services for customers nearby. Over the years, the company has expanded its services and product offerings to provide hardwood, tile, carpet, vinyl and laminate flooring to customers throughout the state.

Tim’s son, Matt Phillips, serves as the company’s vice president. Matt has been with the family business for more than 13 years and came to work full time at Phillips’ Floors right out of high school.

“We take a lot of pride in our business,” he explains. “It is great to see our name on the sides of our trucks. The most rewarding aspect of this job is to see the completed projects and get customer feedback.”

Phillips’ Floors is a relationship-based business. The crew thrives on providing customer-oriented solutions that are both attractive and functional.

Residential flooring systems

The company’s volume is split fairly evenly between commercial and residential work. Potential clients can stop in at the Phillips’ Floors showroom in Indianola, Iowa and Ankeny, Iowa, to browse a large selection, suitable for a number of projects.

“We just opened up the Ankeny location,” Matt says. “We have opened up more room for warehousing and space to display our products. The showroom in 10,000 square feet in area and the setup is geared toward our residential customers and contractors.”

Inside, visitors will find hardwood, laminate, ceramic tile, carpet and vinyl flooring options in an array of colors, styles and shapes. In residential, Matt notes that pre-distressed floors are a big trend for homeowners.

“A lot of people want to put a floor down that already has scratches and dents,” he explains. “Hand-scraped floors have a nice antiqued look and you don’t have to worry about sliding furniture around or the family dog scratching it up. Another big part of what we are doing in residential is engineered wood flooring. This involves a plywood base layer with veneer on top. In Iowa, we have the kind of climate where we get all the seasons. The engineering of these products helps with expanding and contracting in changing temperatures, making these floors last longer and hold up better.”

Diverse commercial applications

While most of the company’s floors are installed for traditional use, Matt and his crew also provide products and installation services for athletic facilities. “We recently installed all of the wood floors and 10 racquetball courts in the new Wellmark YMCA in Des Moines, Iowa,” he explains. “Our contract was part of a $30 million total project. We are seeing a lot of new developments in the sports flooring arena. We have worked with color stains on gym floors, which you will see more so in three-point arches. Our customers request a darker color to accent these zones. We have also done reds, blues, blacks and greys, playing with colors instead of browns. Our team is also installing a lot more synthetic floors and sports surfaces for facilities such as indoor field houses with rubber floors.

The company’s commercial work has led to several opportunities for repeat business. For a local university, the Phillips’ Floors crew has performed several projects over recent years. Many of these contracts are fairly standard, involving wood, tile and laminate floors.

“These are all public bid situations, not private, but we have worked for them several times,” Matt clarifies. “We have done floors in their class buildings and we have done some of their gym floors. We did a unique wall project for them, which is unusual for us. This was a special situation where the school wanted reclaimed flooring put on the walls. It came out looking really cool.”

Looking ahead

Looking ahead at 2015, Matt says his team has a strong backlog of projects lined up. He predicts the business will continue to grow throughout the economic recovery. “We took a pretty hard hit in 2008,” he explains. “But things are picking back up. We grew by 29 percent last year and the year before. We hope that trend will continue.”

While Phillips’ Floors will continue to grow organically within existing markets, Matt and his team have no plans to expand outside of the state. “We are not looking to work outside of Iowa,” he notes. “Our focus is to manage the market we have and continue to deliver high-quality products and installations.”

With a reputation as a hard-working and dedicated family business, Phillips’ Floors Inc. will continue to provide a wide range of flooring solutions to customers within Iowa.