We’re going to replace the floor in most of the downstairs the entire house, eventually, but first is likely to be the dining room-living room-card room area.
We’ve been considering bamboo floor, for strength/aethetics.
Is it really green? from Treehugger
This site is really cranky.
A buyer’s guide from Popular Mechanics
and a color option from Lumber Liquidators.
We know we’re going to go with wood (or grass, wood-like, at least) in these areas, with throw rugs. We’re thinking of doing radiant heating under the floors, since we have to replace all the floors eventually anyway. it’ll be in the reddish end of things, because we both prefer it, and it will not be oak or pine, because neither of us like those for floors (I grew up with pine floors. Just… no).
(some of the links I’ve found in making this post have made me second-guess doing bamboo, but I still have at least a year to make up my mind).
Do you have wood/bamboo/etc floors? Radiant floor heating? Anything you love or hate about it?
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I have not lived with radiant floor heating, but a friend has it in his kitchen under tile. It is nice to walk on (and tempting to nap on) in winter, but that particular space has other airflow issues that made it feel not-well-heated overall. I don’t have a sense of whether the long term maintenance issues for that style of heating are well-known as yet, but if you are doing research, perhaps you do? Most of my apartments have had wooden floors (some better maintained than others) except in the kitchen and bathroom. I’m fond of them, even the ones that aren’t so gorgeous. Disads include cold floors (my current unit is on the first floor and not well-insulated against the basement, so I wear socks in winter), the potential for scratching them with the furniture (chairs that are slid around frequently can be a problem; slick or fuzzy furniture feet help, though one has to keep an eye on them as sometimes they escape), and that dust where one doesn’t walk is very visible. Advantages include being easy to clean, being refinishable, and aesthetics. And they seem to be in, currently, but that doesn’t matter unless you’re looking at selling your place.
Thanks! Good things to know .
My parents had the downstairs flooring entirely replaced in about 2006. They used cork, which was installed by the shop’s crew, and came in tiles that interlock. Cork is actually fairly renewable, and has a neat mottled look, and theirs is a reddish brown. They had to put felt bits under all the furniture so it would not scratch the flooring too much, and work mats down in some parts of the kitchen where people often stand. It might be a worth looking into, though check on durability as you have cats and my parents do not. It makes for a LOVELY floor though. No idea on radiant heating.