From Windows To Floors, Keeps Carpet One Has Got You Covered!

By Sheryl Young

If your home needs new flooring, window treatments or other design elements, it pays to take the short drive to Keeps Carpet One Floor & Home. You’ll have a field day with the choices at this standalone store on S.R. 54 between I-75 and Morris Bridge Rd., on the borderline of Wesley Chapel leading into Zephyrhills.

Keeps Carpet One is owned by Leslie Egan, who came to work at the store in 2008 and bought it in 2009. She likes to give her customers the best products and prices. One conversation with this lady and you will know she eats, breathes, sleeps and cares about all kinds of home flooring and is determined to please her customers.

The store offers carpet, hardwood, laminate and vinyl flooring, as well as ceramic tile. Leslie also creates tailor-made area rugs to customers’ requests, with custom binding and unique, rounded corners that don’t turn up with long-term use.

Leslie believes her customer service at Keeps separates her store from other flooring companies in the area, because she can offer the Carpet One company-wide “Beautiful Guarantee™.”

“With the Beautiful Guarantee, we have warranty levels,” Leslie explains. “For example, our various carpets, such as the Lees® Carpet brand, come in levels of excellence, like Gold Level and Titanium Level. Warrantees can run from 60 to 120 days, and then there are various levels of guarantees for wear and tear; anywhere from 5 to 25 years.”

Satisfaction with the installation of your carpet or flooring is guaranteed for a lifetime. All of the store’s flooring is installed by employees of Keeps. The installers work for Leslie — she never uses subcontractors.

“We have another unique perk for our clients,” Leslie says, “We’ll replace certain grades of carpeting for free within an agreed amount of time if a customer doesn’t like it.”

Keeps also has an in-house interior designer, Deborah Spanger. Deborah’s name may be familiar to people in Wesley Chapel because she is the former owner of Interiors by Spanger Design, which was located in the Freedom Plaza, a few miles west of Keeps location on S.R. 54.

Deborah and Leslie have known each other for years, and have often referred customers back and forth to each other.

“When my lease was coming up in my other location, Leslie and I joined forces here at the Keeps Carpet One address,” Deborah explains. “I customize drapes, sheers, blinds, shutters and any other window coverings, as well as wallpaper. I assist customers with other interior design choices, too.”

Leslie gives free estimates on any flooring materials sold at the store, while Deborah charges a per-hour fee for design color consultations. Both of their husbands are involved. “And, my husband [Steve] does the window covering installations,” Deborah says.

“And my husband Scott,” Leslie adds, “is the floor estimator. He also splits accounting duties with me.”

Free flooring estimates can be done when customers shop at the store, but Leslie also offers shop-at-home services and happily brings samples along.

Nicolette Geiger, the sales representative for the store says, “I’m so happy to be working with Leslie, since 2008,” Nicolette says.

Recent customers are happy to work with Keeps as well. Joy Panter and her sister Jane McCarter had been sharing a house for 16 years when they decided to change their flooring.

“We got a price from another company, but when we lived in Nashville our family often used a Carpet One dealer,” Joy explains. “When we found Keeps Carpet One, we knew we had to check it out. The price was very reasonable, and we loved working with Leslie and her crew.”

Joy and Jane decided on laminate flooring for most of the house, “and it is absolutely gorgeous,” Joy says. “We have two cats and all we do is run a Swiffer duster over the floors. The Keeps installers even carefully moved our piano and our two extremely heavy antique armoires.”

Karen and Alan Knight also used Keeps. Karen says, “Leslie was very knowledgeable about all of her products and didn’t do any-high pressure selling. We found her installers to be professional and helpful, and we also used the painter she recommended. I sing their praises.”

 

American-Made Products At Keeps Carpet One

“All of our carpets are lined with an exclusive tear-resistant backing made especially for Carpet One stores,” Leslie says. “I personally recommend Lees carpeting as top-of-the-line. It’s very hard to stain, and if it ever does stain, we can usually get it out.”

Leslie also carries DuraCeramic tile by Congoleum, a special limestone composite tile that is more gentle on the feet but can still replicate the look of natural stone. “This can be grouted or aligned ungrouted, and can even be combined into designs with wood strips,” Leslie adds. “It also can be floated over any type of flooring without being glued down, and with nothing being ripped up.”

The store also offers state-of-the-art laminate flooring — which today is amazingly durable and looking more like real wood than ever before. Guests in your home will be hard-pressed to notice a difference. Laminate flooring is especially suitable for people with pets or children with allergies, and still costs considerably less than real wood. And, Leslie says, “This, too, can be floated over other floors.”

Leslie explains that “floated” flooring is advantageous in Florida’s humid climate, where changes in temperature can cause materials to swell or contract, thereby changing the fit.

In addition, Keeps has high-grade vinyl flooring choices that are made to look exactly like hardwood floors or ceramic tile, for about a third of the cost of wood. These do need to be glued, and Leslie advises removal of the old floor first. And, of course, her installers can do all of that. She notes that vinyl is more water resistant than other flooring and very easy to clean.

“And, by the way,” Leslie adds proudly, “95 percent of our products are American-made, like the Armstrong® brand. Armstrong flooring has brought all of their manufacturing back to the USA, and is now based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”

If customers so desire, Keeps can treat new flooring for microbes, pathogens and other allergy-inflicting airborne substances before they lay the floors down.

Keeps Carpet One is located at 34120 S.R. 54 W., between the eastern end of Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills. For free estimates for your flooring needs, call Leslie at 782-6712. For window treatments and design consultations, call the store or Deborah at 263-4235. You’ll receive 10-percent-off your next purchase if you mention this story. The website, which includes design videos, is keepscarpetonezephyrhills.com.