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Your floors take more punishment than any other surface of your home. Flooring must be durable, attractive and acoustically appropriate so that every sound in your home isn’t amplified. Whether you prefer a high-tech approach with engineered floors, laminates and bamboo or turn to the past with reclaimed and salvaged material, there are a myriad of options in flooring materials.

 

Solid Wood—Oak is, and has long been, the favorite species in flooring. If you’re feeling creative, consider other types of wood: mainly maple or ash, but also exotic woods such as Australian jarrah, a hard, heavy wood with a rich dark mahogany-red color. Another interesting application is the use of exotic wood borders to frame oak or pine. The use of solid wood flooring in kitchens and bathrooms is often discouraged because of the danger of water damage and swelling, however engineered wood is a nice alternative for those spaces. Wood makes for great flooring. It is beautiful, durable and easy to clean.

 

Bamboo—Bamboo is a grass, not a wood, and can grow to maturity in four to five years, as opposed to the decades it takes most hardwoods. It can also be grown without fertilizers and pesticides, making it environmentally friendly. It is just as hard as maple and oak, and is more resistant to expansion and contraction due to changes in the weather. Bamboo is a natural golden blonde color that takes stain very well. It has distinctive grain patterns and joint marks. It usually comes pre-finished and can be nailed or glued down like engineered flooring, and is just as low maintenance.

 

Cork—Cork is the bark of a Mediterranean tree that is harvested every nine years, making it a renewable resource like bamboo. Cork has excellent sound and shock absorption making it a comfortable option in areas where you spend long periods of time standing, such as a kitchen or home gym. (This also means that dropped glassware or china has less chance of shattering.) Cork’s color variation ranges from honey brown to green, red, chocolate and black. It is said that cork has “memory” and is springy and flexible like a wine cork, allowing it to recover well from compression. Cork is available in both tiles and planks and must be sealed after installation to protect the edges and joints.

 

Concrete—Concrete need not be relegated to the basement or garage. Sanded and polished concrete can look positively refined even in traditional spaces, especially when layered with pretty rugs, furnishings and accessories. A properly sealed concrete floor is about as worry-free a material as you could ever wish for. Concrete is a chameleon material in that it can be made to look like almost anything from brick to polished stone, textured fabric and even wood plank. It has a high weight-to-mass ratio, which must be taken into account for any residential use on anything other than a ground slab.