Bill Boltz
Executive Vice President, Merchandising at Lowe's Companies
Thanks, Marvin, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, U.S. comparable sales %, reflecting solid core home improvement demand across both Pro and DIY customers. This quarter, we drove positive comps in our Building Products and Home Decor divisions, fueled by momentum with the Pro and improve DIY demand. In Hardlines, comps were down slightly as we cycled over significant storm prep activities in Louisiana from Hurricane Ida in 2021 and that did not repeat at the same scale when flu ratings prepared for Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Overall, growth was well balanced with 8 of our 15 merchandising departments above company average. Beginning with our Home Decor division, the fall nesting trends that Marvin mentioned led to standout performance across core interior categories, including appliances, paint, kitchens and bath and flooring. Appliance sales were bolstered by a strong Labor Day event and higher online sales as we continue to enhance our lowes.com user experience.
As an example, this quarter, we began displaying delivery dates earlier in the purchase process to highlight our improved next-day delivery options. If customer needed to quickly replace a refrigerator or washer that's just stopped working, this feature now helps them focus their attention to product that's immediately available. This is especially important for Lowe's as our appliance business is skewed toward replacement within existing homes versus new housing starts. As I mentioned last quarter, we also continue to see customers trading up for innovation, like with our new Maytag Pet Pro washer with technology that removes pet hair from close in the wash cycle, which is exclusive to Lowe's.
This quarter, we also launched a new exclusive home center partnership with Miele, a global leader known for high-end premium appliances. This reflects our ongoing commitment to ensuring that we have new high-quality offerings across all price points with leading products from All-Star brands like Trex, DEWALT, Owens Carney, John Deere, EGO, Honda, KitchenAid, Samsung, LG, Kohler, Moen, Whirlpool, Husqvarna and Aaron's. Paint delivered strong positive comps this quarter across both Pro and DIY.
Many of our Pros, especially those who focus on repair and remodel work, paint as part of their larger jobs. In other words, these are Pros who paint rather than professional painters. And these pros are starting to see the value of our new MVPs Pro Paint rewards program paired with our expanded job site delivery for paint.
These enhanced benefits and capabilities are making it more convenient and cost-effective for Pros to purchase their paint directly from Lowe's, earning us more of their business. In our continued partnership with Sherwin-Williams, we are also upgrading our paint departments across the U.S., including a new color wall that converts all HDTV colors to Sherwin-Williams colors, which resonate with both DIY and Pro customers. With our new color wall, we are bringing all the colors together so that customers can easily match their favorite Sherwin-Williams paint color at our paint desk. We are also resetting some categories to pull relevant, higher margin and more frequently purchased products closer to the front of the department, make it easier for customers to get everything they need for their paint project in one trip. We plan to have half of our stores converted to this new color wall by the end of this year and roll it out everywhere by the end of next year.
We are very pleased with the progress we've made in this core category in just a few short years. We are gaining traction with both the Pro and DIY, and this recent update highlights just a few ways that we plan to continue to take market share in paint. We also had strong positive comps in kitchens and bath, largely driven by improved in-stocks for cabinets and customers opting to trade up for larger, higher quality in-stock cabinets versus waiting for custom orders.
Within flooring, vinyl flooring once again led the way as busy homeowners returning to durable, low maintenance flooring options available in popular brands like Pergo and STAINMASTER. And we're gaining momentum across our private brand portfolio, especially in STAINMASTER, Origin 21, Allen + Roth and Cobalt as this is just another indication of the traction that we are gaining with our Total Home strategy.
Turning to our performance in Building Products division. We continue to see broad-based balanced growth across Pro and DIY in mill work, rough plumbing, electrical, lumber and building materials, driven by strong project-related demand. We are encouraged by the DIY strength that emerged in building products this quarter. As lumber prices have come down, DIY consumers are reengaging in home improvement projects they had previously put on hold leading to double-digit lumber comps in the quarter.
In our Hardlines division, as lumber demand increased so as demand for related detachment categories like fasteners leading to our strong positive comps in hardware, we also continue to see a trend of customers investing in innovation. Our EGO battery now powers 75 different tools, everything from traditional outdoor power equipment like mowers, trimmers and leaf blowers to lifestyle products like camping generators and misting fans. And with the accelerated growth in battery-powered products that we're seeing, it's not surprising that EGO continues to lead the pack in battery-powered outdoor power equipment.
Given the concerns in the marketplace, some of you have asked if we're seeing a shift away from discretionary purchases, which is what we typically expect to see in a softer macro environment. And the straightforward answer is, no. We had a strong sell-through in Halloween this year with an early sell-out of our 12-foot lighted animated mummy at a price point over $300. One could argue that this is one of the most discretionary items we sell. And with Halloween in total being a highly discretionary category, this continues to give us a positive indication of the strength of our consumer.
We kicked off the holiday season with our trim and tree sets early in the quarter. We are seeing early sell-through on taller, higher-end artificial Christmas trees, which is another example of both discretionary purchasing and consumers trading up.
Before I close, I'd like to thank our merchants, supply chain team and our vendor partners for their hardwork and the continued partnership as they continue to provide our customers with the products that they need as we support our stores and communities in the recovery efforts from Hurricane Ian.
Thank you and I'll now turn the call over to Joe.