New Coverings

New Coverings is a one-person flooring outfit that Ed Coglin has run out of Winthrop since 1987, installing carpet, hardwood, laminate, vinyl and tile from Boston and Cambridge out through Waltham, Somerville, Peabody, Lexington and Watertown. Nearly four decades in, the word that keeps coming up in what customers say is fast — reviewers from 2015 through this year describe multi-room jobs wrapped up in a day or two and crews that show up when they say they will. Pricing comes up almost as often as speed. A self-described DIY-savvy homeowner who knows the market called Ed's quote more than fair, and another reviewer said the ballpark phone estimate held up once he actually saw the job. HomeAdvisor puts him at 4.7 from 194 ratings and Angi at 4.7 from 11, both built mostly on five-star write-ups about carpeted stairs, tiled bathrooms, vinyl-plank kitchens and full-room recarpeting jobs, several naming Ed directly for staying in touch and finishing on schedule. The written history runs deeper than most one-person operations: a 2015 review from a self-described structural engineer praised the quality of the work, and reviews through the following years keep describing polite, punctual crews who clean up after themselves. The Better Business Bureau lists New Coverings A+ with no complaints on file, though the business isn't BBB-accredited. Two dated reviews are worth knowing about before calling. A 2022 review described a same-day kitchen tile-to-vinyl swap, finished before a pandemic-lockdown deadline, that left one seam near a sink slightly uneven — the reviewer called it barely noticeable. And a 2019 customer said the job had a few problems and could have used more crew support along the way, even though the finished floor looked good. New Coverings is a solid call for a straightforward carpet, vinyl, tile or wood flooring job where speed matters and the scope is a room or two. It's a one-man operation, so for anything bigger, ask upfront how the crew scales and pin down the timeline before booking.