Northern Lights Design

    Builders & Designers

    Materials, Specification & Finish Coordination

    Send us plans, a finish schedule, or a lot list. We'll review the materials with you across flooring, tile, stone, and slab counters, and confirm availability and pricing in a written quote.

    Northern Lights Design is a specialty materials supplier — we don't perform installation or fabrication. Your crews install; we make sure the right material shows up at the right time.

    Trade Services

    What a Trade Account Gets You

    One Source for Every Category

    Flooring, tile, stone, and slab counters from one team, so you're not chasing four vendors for one house. Contact us to discuss your project and current terms.

    Plan & Finish Schedule Review

    Send us plans or a finish schedule and we'll review the materials involved with you, then confirm what we can supply in a written quote.

    Clear Material Scope

    We quote materials separately from installed cost, so it is clear what is ours and what belongs to your installer.

    Sample & Display Support

    Sample boards for your clients, checked-out samples for a design meeting, and reserve holds on a colorway while a homeowner decides.

    Lead-Time Confirmation

    Before you commit a date to a client, we confirm current availability in writing. Slab, imported tile, and special-order hardwood get flagged early so your schedule holds.

    Staging & Job-Site Delivery

    Material staged at our Columbia Falls warehouse and delivered when the trade is ready — not stacked in a framed house for a month collecting drywall dust.

    Field Notes

    Six Allowance Mistakes That Become Change Orders

    These are the finish-stage disputes we watch play out most often on Flathead Valley builds — and how to write the allowance so they don't.

    Allowance quoted as material-only, sold as installed

    Write allowances as material + freight + delivery, and state clearly that labor, subfloor prep, and demo are separate. This single line prevents most finish-stage disputes.

    Waste factor omitted

    Plan 7–10% on straight-lay plank, 12–15% on diagonal or herringbone patterns, and more on small, cut-heavy rooms. An allowance built on net square footage is short before it starts.

    Trim, transitions, and stair parts forgotten

    Stair noses, reducers, T-molds, and shoe can add meaningfully to a whole-home package — especially with special-order or color-matched components that carry their own lead time.

    Setting materials and underlayment unbudgeted

    Thinset, membrane, grout, sealer, sound underlayment, and moisture barrier are real line items. On a tile-heavy house they're not a rounding error.

    No ordering deadline in the schedule

    Back-date the order from the install date using the confirmed lead time, not the optimistic one. We flag deadlines for slab, imported porcelain, and special-order wood.

    Client upgrades handled verbally

    Every upgrade should generate a written material delta against the allowance before the order is placed. We'll issue the revised material quote so your change order is documented.

    Where to Go From Here

    Browse the full brand and specification directory, stock up at the Sundry Pro Shop counter in Columbia Falls, review our warranty structure, or see completed project case studies. Working as a general contractor sourcing a full material package or an interior designer building a finish schedule? Those pathways go deeper on documentation, freight, and specification. Specifying for a hotel, restaurant, or multifamily property instead? Start with our commercial pathway.

    Common Questions

    Trade Questions, Answered FAQ

    Northern Lights Design is a specialty materials supplier — we don't perform installation. We handle selection, specification, sourcing, ordering, staging, and job-site delivery. Your own crews or subs install. That separation is intentional: it means we can be honest about product performance without protecting a labor margin.

    Call (406) 314-8713 or submit the consultation form and tell us you're a builder, designer, or contractor. We'll talk through your project, confirm current account terms with you, and give you a point of contact so you're not re-explaining your project every time you call.

    Send plans, a finish schedule, or dimensioned sketches and we'll review the materials with you and confirm in a written quote what we can supply. Materials only — labor comes from your installer.

    It depends entirely on the price point and the buyer you're targeting, but the structural advice is consistent: write the allowance as material plus freight and delivery, exclude labor and subfloor prep explicitly, include a stated waste factor, and name the specific product tier. We'll help you back it into a real number against current pricing rather than last year's.

    In-stock carpet, LVP, and common porcelain can move within days from Columbia Falls. Standard-order flooring typically runs 1–3 weeks. Slab counters, imported tile, and special-order hardwood run 4–8 weeks or longer, and tariff-sensitive imports can extend further. We confirm the current lead time in writing at order time so you can back-date from your install date.

    Yes. We stage material at our Columbia Falls warehouse and deliver across the Flathead Valley — Kalispell, Whitefish, Columbia Falls, Bigfork, Lakeside, Somers, Polson, and the surrounding communities. Delivery is scheduled to the trade's readiness so material isn't sitting in an unconditioned house.

    Yes. Repeat packages are where the trade account earns its keep — consistent SKUs across lots, reserved stock, and coordinated delivery. Bring us the plan set and the lot schedule and we'll build the package around your build cadence.

    We do. We're the only Flathead Valley carrier of the Z Collection, and one of relatively few area sources for Porcelanosa, alongside the mainstream lines you'd expect. For designers, that access is often the difference between specifying what you want and specifying what's locally available.
    Trade Resources

    Specification & Sourcing Tools