The Perfect Hybrid
Value Carpet One

Representing the ideal fusion of big-box buying power and the uniquely personal touch of a four-generation-old family-owned business, Value Carpet One can floor you like no other.

With a history that encompasses four generations and nearly 70 years of local entrepreneurship, the Smith family has the grains of the Eastern Shore rooted in their DNA like the nap of a thousand-year-old Persian rug. But where many businesses have a tendency to become staid in the wake of multi-decade success, sisters Cindy Smith-Pilchard and Valorie Adams — and their company, Value Carpet One — only seem to be improving with time.
“The reason we’ve thrived for so long,” offered Smith-Pilchard, the flooring company’s co-owner, “is because we based our business from the beginning on solid business practices like integrity and customer service. That’s why we’re still here and everyone knows who we are.”
The Smiths’ history of Salisbury entrepreneurship started with a real estate business launched by Willey T. Smith (the current owners’ grandmother) way back in the 1940s, with her only son, S. Lee Smith, Jr., having incorporated the business officially in 1964.
Following a sequence of key acquisitions and transactions around the area, the family diversified and began floor covering in 1972 under the name Value Carpet Mart, which is how it would remain for the next 23 years. Then, in 1995, something momentous happened that changed the company down to its, well, fiber.
“We had been competing quite successfully among the local merchants from the time we got into this business,” said Smith-Pilchard. “But eventually the national chains discovered the Eastern Shore, and the game changed practically overnight.”
Not a family to take a challenge lying down, the Smiths got busy — make that busier. In 1995 they formed an alliance with a genius entrepreneur named Howard Brodsky, whose company, CCA Global Partners, represents a consortium of 15 distinct businesses with over 3,800 locations nationwide, including 1,100 Carpet One locations. That’s when Value Carpet Mart officially became Value Carpet One. Fifteen years later, the Smith sisters have absolutely no regrets.
“It was the best decision we ever could have made,” asserted Smith-Pilchard, “because the vision of Howard Brodsky and CCA gave us to access resources that equipped us to compete successfully with the national chain stores.”
The deep buying pockets and marketing savvy that CCA offered combined with the professional expertise and customer-service skills already mastered by the Smiths equaled a brand-new local powerhouse who just so happened to be your friend and neighbor from down the street, the one you grew up with, the one you’d say “hi” to at the grocery store or PTA meeting.
Well, the game plan certainly worked like a charm, and with a building facelift in 1998 followed by a 2005 expansion of their operations to encompass a massive 17,500 square feet — including a 5,000-square-foot showroom as clean and well-organized as it is expansive — Value Carpet One emerged in the dawn of the 21st century as the region’s major player of its kind.
All that space, meanwhile, has been put to very good use, as the types of flooring products you will find at Value Carpet One are seemingly endless. In terms of hard surfaces, they offer everything from cork, ceramic, luxury vinyl, laminate and stone, to bamboo, birch, mahogany, hickory, pine, pecan, oak, cherry, maple, walnut and practically every other hardwood species imaginable, even rubber flooring, from locales as far away as Europe and Asia. Holding out for marble? No problem. Value Carpet One knows just where to go in Europe and South America to find just the stone you’re looking for.

And believe it or not, there’s actually carpeting there, too. From Always Treasured and Attitude II, through Marquise Cut and Metro Skyline, to Welcome Reward and World Palette, there’s a style for every taste, whim and mood at the Smith sisters’ flooring emporium, by industry-leading manufacturers like Karastan, in an array of colors that would make even a rainbow green with envy.
None, however, is more intriguing than Value Carpet One’s own line, Lee’s for Living. The perfect combination of luxurious beauty and durability, VCO’s exclusive Lee’s for Living line boasts ground-breaking stain resistance backed by a mindboggling 25-year warranty that contains absolutely no exclusions for stains — not even pet stains, grease, mustard, coffee or cola. I mean seriously, even red wine stains are covered (which is why I’m gonna see my tailor about getting a couple of business suits and maybe a pair of pajamas made out of this stuff).
Another really cool thing about Lee’s for Living products is that they use a special Sonora fiber called SmartStrand, which is made from 37 percent corn sugar, resulting in a very resilient fiber that is largely recyclable.
Environmental responsibility is actually kind of a theme at Value Carpet One, many of whose products carry the eco-friendly “Green Select” certification. In addition to the SmartStrand products, VCO offers some totally amazing carpeting made from 100-percent-recyclable PVC bottles. Theoretically, that means your beautiful new carpet could come from the same plastic jug that once contained the apple juice your 4-year-old spilled on your old carpet the year before.
“Every single thing we remove from a customer’s premises and 100 percent of our company’s refuse is recycled,” stressed Adams, VCO’s co-owner, “because when it comes to environmental responsibility, yes, it’s important to talk the talk, but it’s even more important to walk the walk.”
To the Smith sisters, walking the walk also means backing not only the products and services they sell but also backing their customers even after the sale and installation are concluded.
“From the time of our grandmother, the Smiths have always approached their business endeavors as a family,” said Adams. “But what we’ve found over the years is that by remaining true to that philosophy, it rather naturally manifests as the loyalty we feel toward our customers, such that they become family, too. Our reputation is paramount to us because at the end of the day, after all the products have been sold and all the services rendered, what remains is your reputation… and, of course, your family.”
Value Carpet One is located at 1530 N. Salisbury Blvd. in Salisbury, immediately south of Pep Boys. Call them at 410-742-5224
(www.valuecarpetonesalisbury.com). Go pay a visit to Cindy and Valorie or one of their talented on-staff designers. While you’re there, make sure you check out some of the most gorgeous and eclectic natural-fiber area rugs you’re gonna find anywhere in the region. But whatever you’re there for, the bottom line is this: If it has to do with floors, it can be yours at Value Carpet One.