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I've seen pictures of cork flooring and it looks really great. How does the finish feel? I'm curious because I have pets and I was wondering whether the sealant would scratch or if my cat would want to claw it and thus damage the floor or the finish.
We are currently debating installing cork floor in the kitchen that we are having remodeled. A couple of people have told us it would not be their first choice for a kitchen. Anyone have thoughts on this? I love the look of a cork floor!!
Five years ago, I had cork flooring installed on my (remodeled) kitchen floor. I bought the cork from a company based in Canada (can't remember the name, but i'm sure you could find it on the web), who arranged for a crew to install it. In order to get a smooth base, they had to install thin plywood sub-floor before putting down the cork tiles. They rollered four coats of polyurethane over the cork. Installation took about a day. Caution: the polyurethane slightly changes the color of the tiles. I selected a semi-gloss, and was very happy with that choice.
I chose cork because: it's softer to walk on than ceramic tile, easy to clean (just a quick damp mopping is fine), reduces noise (important in a kitchen), is more forgiving of dropped items, and.....looks wonderful!! The environmental benefit was a plus.
When i sold the house two years ago, the cork floor attracted a lot of (positive) attention, in fact was a selling point.
It did cost more than vinyl or linoleum. I didn't own the house long enough to know if it stood up over the long run. In time, the color faded slightly in front of a sunny French door.
It's usually not a good idea to get a material comparison by a company that sells one of the materials...not exactly an unbiased opinion. Here's a link that might be better to consider:
I did two bedrooms with cork in my old house. It was from a company called Qu-cork and the style was tongue and groove planks costing about $5/sq. foot for the material only. It was awhile before I got the technique down for getting them to lock but once I did the install went well. It is amazing all the varieties of styles and colors that are on offer, the resiliency of the products, and how good it felt underfoot.....oh and it dampens echo too. I've had maple, Vermont slate, and stained concrete but cork remains my favorite. Oh and it is also the most environmentally friendly wood floor since the bark is removed but regrows in a number of years.
Only thing to watch out for is possible indentations from heavy furniture with small footprints, but you can use pads to prevent this.
We had our floor installed over 3 years ago. Despite having 5 cats, it still looks great, is holding up much better than the wood flooring in fact.
Gorgeous! When I got out of the flooring biz, cork was just beginning to be rediscovered, and bamboo was gaining popularity. When we buy a home (in the next 2 years), I'm probably going with one or the other; tile's nice, but hard on the joints.
Maybe it's better now than it used to be. I hope so. Our first home had cork flooring in a big family room. I think it was probably built in the fifties. We bought it in the 80's. While it was softer to walk on, it was not durable enough for a family room. The dog's claws gouged it. When the kids were babies and they would push toys on it, it would gouge it. Every piece of furniture dented it. It was hard to keep clean, because even though it was sealed, it still had little crevasses dirt could get into. On the plus side, because it was brown, you didn't really see the dirt. When we bought our current home, a few years ago, we were looking at replacing the tile with hardwoods. The salesman kept trying to push this stuff on us. He kept telling us it was the newest thing, greatest thing. Um, no. It's not new and it's not great. Been there. Done that. Kind of like when we were buying new carpeting and they kept trying to sell us frieze. Looks strangely like the shag my parents had in the 60's and 70's. It was my job to rake that junk after mom vacuumed. I hated that stuff. Lawn tools should never have to be used inside a house. I guess eventually everything comes back around.
I agree that EVERY product has some downsides. If you choose a VERY durable flooring like porecelain tile or quarried stone your pets will never gouge it and unless your kids routinely play with war hammers they would damage it. The downside is that it transmits COLD terrible quickly, tends to result in a noisier percieved background sound level and can be a slipperly even with proper furniture feet / throw rugs.
There are a whole lot more varieties of cork available now than even a few years ago. Some ARE fully rated for all indoor "wet areas" including laundry rooms (where they can be AWESOME for dealing with the otherwise tough challenges of noise and vibration common to clothes washing machines) baths and kitchens.
When it comes to "finish options" there is a wide range of options and opinions. Some cork is "factory finished" with products designed to last more than 30 years in a residential setting. Other finishes are designed to be easily field applied and lend themselves to "touch ups" either as frequently as several times a year (wax based) OR on more like a 5-7 schedule like hardwood flooring (the various urethane and similar coatings). Personal preference / use pattern / cost should be your guide.
I think it is easy to "over hype" the fadish properties of any material (like how "green" something may be) when in realiity the details of how / where each product is grown / processed is what determines the impact it has on others. Costs similarly can be very low for minimally processed materials that are more labor intensive to install / maintain VS quite high for a product that has a lot of engineering magic backing into by high tech factories.
If you don't do your homework and listen to the sales pitch of a somebody more interested in separated you from your dough you have only yourself to blame -- how many folks have gone shopping for nice basic transportation and driven home with a high priced luxury vehicle and high payments?
We are currently debating installing cork floor in the kitchen that we are having remodeled. A couple of people have told us it would not be their first choice for a kitchen. Anyone have thoughts on this? I love the look of a cork floor!!
I have hardwood flooring and love it. That said, personally I say tile and/or vinyl in kitchens and bathrooms plus carpet in bedrooms. My preferences, but 10 homes or so later, experience speaks.
As aside. I believe hardwood flooring has a material hardness test which might help some decide which product.
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