Mohawk Industries took top honors in five of the 11 categories included in National Floor Trends 2005 Styling Excellence Awards. In addition, Johnsonite and Mannington each won First Place in two categories. Winners in the competition, which was launched this year to recognize outstanding design and styling achievement, were selected by retailers, distributors and others working in the flooring industry.

"We created the Styling Excellence Awards as a way of reinforcing the fashion and styling aspects of our industry," explained NFT publisher and editorial director Jeff Golden. "Creativity is an essential element of flooring and we are fortunate to have so many creative people working in this business. We felt it was time to recognize their efforts."

Entries were showcased at Surfaces 2005 and attendees were asked to vote for those they saw as the most compelling and original. Aside from rug and carpet categories, the competition included six categories for hard surface flooring, plus one for moulding and a competition for the best merchandising effort. The competition drew more than 125 entries from 65 companies.

Those entering the competition noted that many areas of flooring, particularly hard surface, are not often recognized for their aesthetic appeal. "In our category the aesthetic value has been secondary to function," said Jeff Krejsa, director of marketing services for Johnsonite, which took First and Second place in the Rubber Floor category and First Place in the Cove Base, Moulding/Feature Strip category, "We have challenged ourselves to address both function and aesthetics. We appreciate the recognition."

And the Winners are...

The following are the

categories included in the competition with the winning entry (in orange) and

the first runner up

Area Rugs

Mohawk Industries

Main Attraction

Shaw Living

Kathy Ireland Collection

Carpet, Residential

Mohawk Industries

SmartStrand

Beaulieu of America

Carefree Living

Cove Base, Moulding/Feature Strip

Johnsonite Perceptions

Designer Wall Base

Roppe Corporation

Visuelle Wall Base

Carpet, Commercial

Atlas Carpet Mills, Inc.

Sketchbook Collection

Masland Contract

Chicago Collection

Ceramic

Mohawk Industries

Terrabella

Mannington

Garda porcelain tile

Laminate Floors

Quick-Step

Vintage Dark Oak

Wilsonart Flooring

Red Label Hand

Scraped Collection

Luxury Vinyl Tile

Mannington Mills

Adura Luxury Plank

NAFCO by Tarkett

PermaStone Modular

Resilient Floors

Mannington Mills

Realistique Ardesia

Tarkett

FiberFloor

Rubber Floors

Johnsonite

Artistic Square, Cubis, Pebble

Johnsonite Bamboo, Chopped Bamboo

Wood

Mohawk Industries Mayan/Puebla Walnut

Anderson Hardwood Floors Anderson Sierra

Merchandising

Mohawk Industries

New Generation

Shaw Industries

Couture 2-Sided Merchandising Unit