 Fashionable Flooring
Trends
For today’s high-end homes
by Priscilla Kohutek
photography by
Robert French
Selecting floors for a new or remodeled home is often a daunting task. There’s permanence about flooring that’s frightening, so homeowners may feel pressured to make perfect choices. Toi Haensel, an interior designer at Class, Covers & Colors Inc., advises getting what you want in the first place, even if you have to cut corners somewhere else. But don’t worry: There are experts eager to help you make the right decisions, and knowing this can remove some of the pressure you may feel and make the process more enjoyable.
Here are some of the materials you’ll see and some of the terms you’ll need to know when you begin to explore today’s flooring options.
• Bamboo is a trendy and distinctive, “green” product that equals the strength of most hardwoods and is harder than red oak and rock maple. It is susceptible to moisture and should not be used in bathrooms, basements and kitchens.
• Ceramic tile is a material made of clay and fired at high temperatures, but not as high as porcelain; therefore, it’s not as strong as porcelain tile.
• Concrete can be scored and sealed using different colors and textures to imitate various types of natural stone, brick and wood. Tough and durable, concrete can handle heavy traffic, but it does sometimes crack. Randy Rogers at Specialty Concrete is using a new product, QC Thin-PaveAA NI, to coat damaged or just plain boring floors with a paving material that can be stamped and textured to look like hand-laid stone or brickwork. The process is less messy and more cost effective than replacing existing wood flooring. Another new product Rogers uses, QC Concrete Resurfacer, goes on ultra-thin and also bonds with most existing surfaces, but it doesn’t give a high-end look equal to his other new product. On the other hand, you can get some natural colors and creative designs that would work nicely outside around pools, on patio floors and on large, expansive surfaces where the cost of alternative flooring would be prohibitive.
• Engineered wood: Layers of wood are crisscrossed for more stability, so it doesn’t react to moisture and weather changes, as solid wood does. It can be installed over concrete below, above and at ground level. The surface is actually
harder than solid wood, which helps to prevent indentations. It’s also available unfinished, so it can be stained to match any existing wood floors. Most all engineered wood is guaranteed to withstand three sandings.
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