The floor is a room’s most crucial, simple component; it is the figurative and literal base for the rest of the space. If it’s a beautiful, elegant, or interesting base, there is great potential for the finished space to be beautiful, elegant, or interesting. With a widening array of materials, treatments, and processes available in flooring, it has never been easier to achieve the precise feel you want for this essential part of the structure you call home.
In terms of materials, sleek hardwood and lush carpet are firm classics; their durability and luxury are not about to go out of style. But they are not the only contenders on the flooring scene, and before you settle on a shade of walnut or a Berber, explore what else is out there. You may find more design freedom with colored concrete, more comfortable cushion in eco-friendly cork, more earthy allure in handcrafted ceramics, or more timeworn character in reclaimed antique wood.
Concrete Gets Clever
Three major trends are evolving with concrete, a versatile flooring material known for its uncanny durability. It can be used in a wide palette of grays to give an industrial, urban feel to a chic loft. Brightly pigmented concrete can bring strong energy to kitchens, baths, and living areas. Soft, neutral-colored concrete (think tans and taupes) can provide warm refinement to a space – the same overall effect as large tiles or stones, but with a smoother surface and fewer maintenance issues.
Technology has done much to improve concrete as a design medium. A new process of pigment dispersal employed by Grace Construction Products allows for thorough, even color throughout the concrete (rather than color that is applied to the surface). The method is similar to the process used to mix paint, says Chris Forgey, the company’s residential market manager. As with paint, nearly any hue can be attained.
Concrete is inexpensive, generally, because it’s almost always part of a floor’s foundation, whether you see it or not. Using the material for the finish as well cuts costs. Besides being practical, concrete can be artful. It can be stained, textured, stamped, scored, or polished for a high sheen. “It is really a sculptural element,” Forgey says.
Going Green
Technology and innovation are allowing homeowners to reshape their homes in ways that are kind to the environment. Renewable flooring materials such as cork, bamboo, and palm are receiving a lot of attention for their sustainability and natural beauty. Cork is not the obvious choice for many people – it seems pretty soft, after all. The softness of cork floors, says Margaret Buchholz of Expanko Inc., is commonly misperceived. There’s a lot of “give” in cork – making it a comfortable fit for the kitchen, where people spend hours on their feet – but when weight is evenly distributed on the surface, the material is also quite durable.
Best of all, it’s a quickly renewable resource, making it a “greener” alternative to hardwood. Cork is harvested bark that is compressed and baked. The harvest does not damage the trees and the material naturally regenerates every seven to nine years. The differentiation in the material’s color is due to the baking process – longer baking brings a darker shade, just as it would for a loaf of bread. Many finishes, stains, and floor patterns are available. Buchholz says most people choose a light color of cork, but she has seen a growing interest in finishes containing a touch of red.
Bamboo and palm are also becoming popular options known for their distinctive grains, eco-friendliness, and material strength. Bamboo – a grass, not a tree – grows so rapidly and widely throughout China that its growth cycle is much faster than the rate of harvest. Additional choices in “green” flooring include recycled walnut and a variety of reclaimed woods. All hardwoods are renewable, but as with any design material each has its own set of environmental issues, i.e. sustainability. Several resources are available that can help you weigh the environmental costs of any building material you’re interested in – the Forest Stewardship Council at fscus.org is a good place to start for comparing woods.
An option that combines texture, durability, and sustainability but is not often seen is cobbled wood. It’s similar to cobblestone but the wood has a bit more cushion and a different finish. Cobbled wood finds a use for the ends and short pieces of wood that can’t be sawn into uniform planks. The material has that antiquated feel of an old city street.
Universal Floors Inc., a company known for installing flooring in a number of high-profile homes – “we’ve done floors for every [US] president since Eisenhower,” says Sprigg Lynn, the company’s president – as well as in a number of well-known public and commercial buildings, has been doing cobbled wood floors since the 1950s. Universal Floors can create the floor with an ingrain “like a butcher’s block,” Lynn says, or the edges can be pillowed for more texture and to imitate the look of stone. In addition to its elegance, cobbled wood wears like iron, Lynn adds.
The Highest End
Stone and tile are two of the more lavish options available in flooring. Tumbled marble and granite are ever-popular, and Mediterranean-inspired mosaics, porcelain and porcelain-based materials, and tiles of unusual scale (think very small or oversized) are more recent trends. One trend in stone and tile flooring is toward a subtle, natural finish rather than a cold, polished look.
Gorgeous vintage woods are available, usually with a price to match the quality of the wood. Dan Harrington, marketing director of EcoTimber, says reclaimed woods are becoming very popular in deep shades of brown for a rustic Old World feel. Often the wood is re-sawn and hand-scraped to enhance the character and give the material even more texture and timeworn quality than it naturally has, and purely organic features in the wood, such as wormholes, have become desirable flaws that make the material distinctive. Although finding reclaimed antique woods that suit your space might be a challenge, Harrington says, this option is environmentally sound and results in a beautiful floor that is truly unique.
Floor as Canvas
Whatever the material underneath may be, choose your floor coverings carefully. A rug may be an easy facet of a room to change out, but it needn’t be seen as an afterthought to the rest of the design. In fact, as Tufenkian Showroom Manager Nicole Costello says, many people start with a rug when designing a room.
One overarching trend is that rugs are seen more as artwork than decoration. As such, people want looks that are truly original and not mass-produced, and they want the craftsmanship and material to shine through. Geometric patterns and fluid, organic lines and shapes are strong trends, as are updated versions of more traditional patterns. Says Emma Gardner of emma gardner design, “Color and scale go a long way toward making something contemporary.” The heavy, ornate patterns of Oriental rugs are being pared down for modern interiors. Hand-knotted silk and wool rugs give a rich texture to any floor.
Clean lines, too, are always in style. Although an abstract, artistic floor covering can make a good focal piece, Gardner says, “You can still bring warmth with a bold, elegant rug that commands attention.”
