Lauger's Carpet closing after 42 years

Lauger's Carpet One Floor & Home, on Walnut Street, will be closing after 42 years. The showroom's last day will be Saturday. The warehouse will be open for a while with merchandise on sale, said Larry Lauger Jr. He said a combination of factors ushered in his decision to close the business founded by his father, Larry Sr. "It's so hard to find good quality installers," he said. "I wouldn't hire anybody I wouldn't have in my own house." The pandemic hurt business. "That really cut into our bottom line, because folks don't want you in their house because they're afraid of the virus, which is understandable. It makes folks uncomfortable," Lauger said. "And folks aren't coming out like they were and visiting the store." "I'm kind of heartbroken," Lauger, 58, added. He was in high school when his father started the business in 1978. Fathers and sons have similarities and differences. Instead of going into the family business, Larry Jr. pursued the Air Force. He served for 22 years, built bombs, traveled around the globe and rose to the rank of tech sergeant. After his time with the Air Force, he worked in administration for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Then nine years ago, he received a call that his father was very ill. Within days, Larry Sr. died at age 72. The family wanted Larry Jr. to take over the business. He obliged, but it wasn't easy. "It was devastating," Lauger said. "If it wasn't for my employees — my dad's employees, I should say — that stuck with me and the Carpet One (franchise) for all their knowledge and help, I would have closed the door the next day. I was completely lost, had no idea what I was doing." "I got everybody together and said, 'OK, we're all adults here. I have two rules: Don't lie to me, don't steal from me and we'll get through anything,'" Lauger recalled. "That's what we've done," he said. He learned to have a "business mindset." Lauger took care of customers, amassed quality materials and dealt with distributors, carpet mills and advertisers. And he learned that it is OK to say no to salesmen. "You're not hurting anybody's feelings," Lauger said. Like a lot of sons, he has great admiration for his father. "I'm still trying to fill his shoes. He really left a presence here in the community. I'll never measure up to the level he was at. There's no way." Larry Lauger Sr. grew up in Indiana. His father died of lung cancer when Larry Sr. was 16 years old. He stepped up to take care of his mother and seven sisters. After his school day, Larry Sr. went to work at "all kinds of different jobs." "To make extra money, he would work in a garage and do the split rims on tires and stuff like that, because it paid an extra quarter," Lauger Jr. said of his father. "He learned how to drive a tow truck. He was a butcher for a while. He sold advertisements." Lauger Sr. lived in Toledo for a bit before buying a Dairy Queen in Findlay in the early 1970s. Then he bought a second Dairy Queen. He later sold those and started the carpet business. "He learned how to make things work from zero and get on up. I've never been that low in my life," Lauger said. "I've watched his tenacity, his ability really to take a lemon and make lemonade. He always was able to just push through stuff and make it happen, make it work." "I try very hard to live up to that part," he said. "We had our differences. We're both Leos (the astrological sign). We would get into arguments," Lauger said. "I had a couple of employees say here one time they saw us get into an argument and they said it was like watching two rams on a hill. "But the thing was, we both knew what was right and we had our own vision," he said. "We always had that way of looking at a problem, but we would look at it in two different ways and we were bound and determined that that's the way it's gotta be." Lauger strives to emulate his father's thriftiness and perseverance. The business survived floods, fires and blizzards. One winter day in the early 1980s, a city water line broke near the business, flooding the store with 3 feet of water. "It was the dead of winter and the water had frozen at the doors and it filled the store. I still remember that look on his face," Lauger recalled of his father. "It was like, 'Oh my God, what am I going to do now?'" "But then he kind of stepped back" and got to work on the floors with a mop. Lauger is uncertain what he will do next. He is considering finding a job elsewhere, starting another business or retiring.