Contract Furnishings Mart

We made a trip from the coast to CFM in Tigard. Their selections were great to choose from and they seemed pretty busy so we were able to browse in peace and not be bombarded or «sold» on any products like some other places do. I personally don’t mind walking in to a store and not being approached as I am a grown up and know it’s not that big of a deal to walk up and ask a question on my own. I don’t know why some people take it so personal when they aren’t approached right away. It’s ok to ask for help. We had done research prior to going in, and knew we wanted to go with LVT flooring. We found one line of products we loved and couldn’t decide on color. After we finally made up our minds we approached a lady at the counter by the name of Pilar. We asked for a price and placed our order. She was patient while we raised our limit on our cards with the bank, which took about 10 extra minutes of our time, which when you are already super busy can be annoying. But she was patient with us, and was on top of it on getting back to us with an ETA. One thing to keep in mind is that CFM does not make their material… I say that because some people get so frustrated when their product is on back order, and they take it out on the salespeople when all they are doing is trying to help. Anyways, another thing I was very appreciative of was the fact that 2 days later we changed our mind on color. I called Pilar and she made me feel better because she said that wouldn’t be a problem and she would take care of it… and she did. We are getting ready to head over to grab our flooring and we are VERY SATISFIED WITH CFM IN TIGARD. Please remember when going in to a flooring store, that many of these sales reps have gotten yelled at by customers over the phone for carpet getting stuck in Minnesota in a snow storm… or for not approaching them right away as they walk through the store… or for being dissatisfied with the selection. Life is short and it’s just flooring people! Thank you CFM in Tigard for helping us with our small order :)

CFM does have a large selection of tile. We didn’t feel that the staff was helpful in our case, as first time home remodelers. We felt rushed and overwhelmed by our sales rep. While looking at samples, we were not able to get specific pricing information on each tile. This resulted in a huge and unpleasant surprise when we got the quote from them which was higher than the price per square foot that we had said was our limit. It also turned out that one of the tiles we chose took weeks to arrive, a fact we wish would had known while we were in the showroom.
This is not CFM’s fault, but it turned out that our tile installer/​contractor was not competent at estimating quantities of tile required for our job. We now have about 7 boxes of high-​priced tile which can not be returned because CFM doesn’t take back unused tile. At least we can donate it to Habit for Humanity.

Large selection of natural stone, marble, and granite for interior/​exterior home projects.
My husband and I went early about 8:45am on a Saturday. Open Saturdays from 8:00 — 12:00.
Very helpful staff! As we were making decisions on tile for our bathroom, Terese Shoff gave us crucial information to make our natural stone tile last. She recommended «red guard». This product is essential when using in a shower. It’s paint that is used as a vapor barrier to prevent mold and seeping moisture under the stone.
Highly recommended! Lots of parking.

Sometimes it takes a village, when you really just want the personal touch.
When it comes to home renovations, I’m the one pushing for updates while my more practical better half is a bit reluctant to make a change. Especially if the project is cosmetic rather than absolutely required.
And he may be right (Don’t tell him I said that). I feel like we went through the ringer on the last project to replace our 20+ year old gas fireplace that looked dated (all that brass!) and only worked some of the time. «Come on, honey. How hard can it be?» Turns out, incredible hard, expensive and time consuming.
A lot of this I lay on my own shoulders since I like to explore all of my options and this project had a lot of different elements. What I really needed was an expert to take my hand and guide me a bit because otherwise I enter the horrible land of analysis paralysis. I am pretty sure I’ve looked at every tile sample in every material at both manufacturing and retail locations in the Portland Metro Area. After all that running around, I finally placed my order through CFM in Tigard.
I’m a little confused about how much help CFM is there to provide. Are they just for contractors or direct customers like me? From my experience, they are much more geared towards contractors who already know what they are doing and require little assistance. One other issue is that they keep contractor’s, not customer’s, hours. They close at 5:00p on most weekdays and on the weekend they are only open from 8:30 — 12:00 on Saturday.
After many unsuccessful visits walking the aisles ourselves and talking to several staff members who couldn’t really help, I followed Sarah’s advice and tracked down Jacquie. When it came to picking products and designing our space, she was fantastic. Full of ideas, quick and knowledgeable, when you were there in person.
Then we descended back into the mire once we tried to order our products. Calls weren’t returned, some of the products were (all of a sudden) on back order, etc. These delays were conveyed by different people at CFM, so the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. After waiting almost a week to connect by phone or email, I had to go in person and work with another rep. and basically say, «Take my money, please!» As a customer, the transactional elements were painful.
As Kate noted in her review, they have a lot of product, but they stock only partial samples from many retailers and it tends to be on the traditional side. So if you are looking for something special or unique, you probably need to visit the source and they do not stock some of the more high end local designers (e.g. Pratt & Larsen).

My husband and I have had several interactions with CFM as remodeling contractors. We highly recommending asking for Jacquie when you go there.
She has been consistently friendly and helpful each time one of us goes there or sends a customer there. If she’s asked a question she doesn’t know (i.e. what’s the best flooring for a dance studio in a garage that can also be driven on) she researches the answer rather than making something up or deferring you.
When my parents had decided to do a full home remodel, Jacquie helped us choose the best materials for their unique needs. For example, she showed us all the different varieties of cork flooring that they carry (my husband had already talked my parents into going with cork for half their house) and what made each brand different.
Then, we moved onto carpet. She was able to quickly narrow down the styles that would be best for them: something easy for a walker to roll over and durable enough for an indoor standard poodle to play on all day without looking industrial.
Finally, she worked her last magic trick of the evening. I told her the colors my mom had picked out for the walls: three shades of purple in the bathrooms, pink in the kitchen (with dark red countertops) and blue in the main area. We wanted a tile backsplash to match, but my mom didn’t want anything too light that would show dirt. Phenomenally, this was all I had to say before Jacquie honed in on a pasteboard of slate tile that reflected or complimented all the colors I’d mentioned. It exceeded all of our expectations.
The quality and variety of materials makes CFM far more cost effective than Home Depot or (shudder) Lowe’s. They also stand behind their products. One of our clients purchased a light beige carpet that came with a grease marker stain. Without hassle, CFM gave us an option (whatever worked best for the client): they would refund some of the money and pay for a carpet cleaner to come out or they would exchange it. The client chose the first option.
I will warn, however, that I wavered between four and five stars. The continued excellent service from Jacquie combined with the quality products tipped it to a five for me, but we have had a few problems. I’ve had good luck with other service representatives, but others can be surly or unhelpful. One guy told me there was no difference at all between the different brands of cork flooring. (Then why carry different options? And why do they have different prices? Apparently, grunts qualify as valid responses to these questions.) And we’ve had some problems with customers being told that they cannot pay for the materials but only contractors can pay for the materials. In fact, this is inaccurate and we’ve had to ask customers to try their order a second time (always with success) since as long as they are putting it on a contractor’s account, they can pay CFM directly.

This place has a HUGE selection of flooring materials, from hardwood to tile to carpet.
What it lacks in variety, it makes up for in volume, which means there are about 87 billion different shades of beige tiles, but if you actually want a color in your bathroom, you’ll be digging around that sea of neutrality for the one or two product lines that stray into interestingness.
It’s probably not really CFM’s fault that in the entire tile section there were only three options for dark green tile. They can only sell what exists, after all. But still, it’s was a big waste of time trying to find what we wanted.
What made us angry, though, was that they couldn’t even give us a reliable quote once we found something we liked. Our contractors told us that CFM would quote us the retail price, but what we’d actually end up paying was the lower wholesale price the contractors would be able to get. Imagine our surprise when the price CFM quoted the contractors was double what they’d told us.
It ended up not really mattering, as the tile we wanted was back-​ordered until two months later, so we couldn’t get it even if we had been able to figure out how much it would cost.