Cork Flooring in the Kitchen
Did you know that cork is not just for corkboards anymore? It is a great environmentally friendly flooring that feels great under your feet and looks great too. Cork flooring in a kitchen will instantly update your kitchen and make it feel warm and inviting. Cork flooring has many other benefits also.
Why would you put cork flooring in the kitchen? If you are concerned about the environment, cork flooring is an excellent choice for you. Cork is a renewable resource, which means that the trees are not cut down to make the cork, as it comes from the bark of the tree and the bark is regrown within nine years. This is a great benefit over hardwood flooring since the trees are cut down to be used for flooring, and it typically takes 30 years–sometimes much longer–for a tree to be large enough to be used for flooring again.
Cork flooring is also wonderful for homes with family members with allergies. It is hypoallergenic and does not absorb dust or mites, letting you mop the floor clean to remove the allergens. This makes it an ideal flooring for people with allergies, as the dust will not cause them problems.
Is cork flooring in a kitchen a good idea? Yes! Cork flooring is resilient, which means that it has some cushion when you walk and stand on it. This is great for the kitchen where you stand for long periods of time preparing and cooking food. Cork flooring is also very durable, which is a big benefit in the kitchen as it is probably the most traveled room in the entire house. Being water resistant and easy to clean are also great benefits in the kitchen where spills and messes are very common. It also has the added benefits of being an insulator, which is great for noise and temperature control.
The beauty of cork flooring is unparalleled. Cork comes in many different colors from different shades of tan to red to black so you can mix and match colors to create a custom floor all your own. And because of it’s patterning with light and dark swirls, it hides dirt and blemishes well. Of course that can be a bit of a problem if you drop something you want to retrieve or clean; but you’ll get over that in no time. It is neutral enough to go with any design style, yet makes a statement of beauty and warmth that other floorings cannot even come close to matching.
It comes in two basic styles; tiles and floating planks. Cork tiles are glued directly to the subfloor while floating cork flooring is clicked together and sit on top of the subfloor. Some cork comes prefinished with a UV-cured finish; be careful with this because it may not be as durable as a polyurethane (water-based being environmentally the best choice).
One of cork’s unsung benefits is that it is “self healing”. It’s more resilient to compression from furniture than carpeting or vinyl and linoleum. When you drop a knife or other sharp object on it, the wound heals up so you don’t see it. It’s an incredible flooring material.
Care for your kitchen floor is simple and easy. It just needs regular sweeping and damp mopping to get rid of dirt and debris. Once a year or when your floors start looking dull, you can refinish the cork flooring, according to your manufacturer’s directions.
If you are looking for an environmentally friendly way to cover your floors, you want to consider cork flooring for your kitchen. Kitchen floors are very important as the kitchen is a very important room in your home. Cork flooring will help your room feel warm and inviting for you, your family, and your friends so that you will all want to gather and enjoy your kitchen even more.
Flooring Ideas From Amtico
One of the most important parts of any interior’s design is the flooring, and in today’s time, it is finally getting the attention that it deserves. New ideas and concepts in flooring are being regularly introduced in the market and homeowners who want their houses to stand out from the rest now have a million options in floor designs to choose from. When it comes to introducing new floor design concepts and ideas, then Amtico can definitely be called the pioneer.
The premier flooring manufacturer, Amtico, not only produces all kinds of flooring materials ranging from hardwood and laminates to vinyl and cork, it has also managed to make flooring extremely interesting with its varied and novel floor design ideas. Amtico’s flooring designers manage to introduce new ranges regularly and get their inspiration from anything and everything ranging from history and nature to youtube and James Bond.
No wonder then, Amtico’s floor design concepts and styles manage to leave the competitors far behind. Amtico is easily the world leader when it comes to flooring design and materials, and if you want nothing but the best in style, design and quality for your home, then Amtico flooring is what you should go for.
The latest flooring design ideas from Amtico incorporate the use of striping to highlight the floor pattern and to create a floor design that is absolutely unique. The color scheme of the stripes on the floor are supposed to coordinate with the rest of the elements in the room like the furniture, wall paper or paint and the upholstery or floor covering. Other flooring design ideas that Amtico flooring of all kinds come with are the use of highlighting features like borders and motifs. The use of striping, borders and motifs in floors easily lets you create a floor that is absolutely unique and customized for your own home and d
Laminate Flooring – How To Choose One!
Laminate flooring has become one of the most preferred solutions today in the world when it comes to picking a flooring type for the home or the workplace alike. With a boom in real estate around the world like no other, and the associated growth of construction, the flooring industry is going through never-before growth rates breaking all records with each passing phase of time. And given the economic outlook of the world, there is only one way this industry is going to go and that is up!
Laminate flooring while bearing close resemblance with hardwood flooring has a few fundamental differences that start from the way it is constructed right up to the maintenance measures that need to be taken post installation. Depending on where you want the flooring to be done, the kind of traffic it will need to take and the weight of movement involved, you can choose the laminate flooring of the right strength that will best suit your needs. To do that, i.e. pick the right laminate flooring over hardwood flooring, you need to understand how laminate flooring is graded and what grade makes the most sense for you to buy. Net-net, you want to know what AC rating is all about for laminate flooring.
The European Producers of Laminate Flooring or the EPLF as they are commonly known is an organization that standardizes the types of laminate floorings available in the market today by classifying them according to various categories based on the permissible stress levels. These stress levels could be tested for scratching, denting on impact, abrasion resistance, staining, reaction to fire among several such parameters. Based on this, the suitability of the laminate flooring for a certain place of installation is determined and an AC rating given. The AC rating is an indicator for the customer on whether the laminate flooring under consideration will perform well at the chosen place of installation.
AC ratings range from AC 1 all the way upto AC 5. AC 1 laminate floorings are meant for low traffic low weight movement locations such as the bedroom in your house, the study room etc. The next level AC 2, is prescribed largely for the rest of the house. SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) and small offices go in for AC 3. Slightly higher traffic areas like a pharmacy or a gift shop use AC 4 as do medium sized restaurants. Very high traffic areas like airports, government buildings etc use AC 5.
Choose your laminate flooring carefully and you will reap the benefits of a glittering floor with aesthetic beauty for a long time to come. Get floored by laminate flooring!