Home Remodeling Blog
Category
Flooring
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12.22.09Options Plentiful for Green Flooring
Flooring, Green Remodeling (0)Home and Garden Television Need help in selecting environmentally friendly flooring? Think green. Several green certification programs and directories are available to help remodelers, builders and homeowners make that selection. For example, the National Wood Flooring Association looks to the Forest Stewardship Council to certify wood-flooring products as green when the material comes from forests operated under sustainable forest-management practices. Other organizations, such as BuildingGreen Inc., publisher of the GreenSpec Directory and Environmental Building News, qualify and list other green-flooring alternatives, such as natural linoleum, cork and concrete. Carpeting: The carpet and rug industry uses a labeling system to identify materials with fewer volatile ...
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10.15.09What’s the Best Surface for My Kitchen Floor?
Flooring, Kitchen Remodeling (0)Appearances are important when it comes to new kitchen floors, but don't choose a material based on looks alone. Narrow the choices to a few contenders and then take a trip to a flooring store or home center for a test drive. Here's how the various options stack up: WOOD Wood fits a variety of decor styles, is warm underfoot and easy on the legs, and is a quiet floor option. The maintenance and durability of a wood floor depends greatly on what species of wood is being used and how that wood is finished. One of the worries with ...
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06.19.09A Squeaky Floor Is Demanding Attention
Flooring (0)Gene Austin Hartford Courant Q: I recently moved into an older home with hardwood floors that squeak badly. How can I stop the noise? A: The squeaks, of course, are caused by wood rubbing against wood or nails when the floor is walked on. You have the best chance of fixing the squeaks if there is unobstructed access to the floor from below — a basement without a ceiling or a crawl space, for example. Go into the basement and have someone walk on the floor overhead. Mark the squeaky areas on the subfloor (the layer of boards or plywood under the ...
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04.15.09Meet the New Bamboo: Natural Material Highlights Stylish Homes
Flooring, kitchen cabinets (0)Patt Johnson Gannett Bamboo is not just for tiki torches anymore. It's also for flooring, laptops and sinks. Eco-friendly homeowners are finding a growing number of bamboo products to use in remodeling and decorating their homes. Bamboo bowls, picture frames and other decorating items have been common items for years, but now the lightweight-but-durable wood stems are being used for furniture and fabrics. It's everywhere -- wallpaper, doors, garden benches and kitchen countertops. Asus, a technology products company based in Taiwan, makes a bamboo laptop (powered by an Intel processor) because it promotes green living. The manufacturing process for bamboo "uses less energy than traditional ...
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09.09.08The Beauty of Cork Flooring
Flooring (0)By Lisa Sim Epoch Times We usually think of cork as something we attach to our walls and stick memos to, or pull from a wine bottle, but cork has been used in flooring in Europe for over 300 years. At first glance, it seems that cork would be easily damaged because of its softness, but cork is tougher than you think. It is a strong and resilient product made of millions of honeycomb cells that hold air pockets, and therefore lends itself to be a quality floor product. Cork comes from the bark of a cork tree, and when carefully harvested will ...
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04.04.08Create Character with the Crowning Touch of Harwood Mouldings
Flooring (0)Looking for a way to add sparkle and impact to a modest home? Some experts suggest a fresh coat of paint, while others recommend a new floor. Unfortunately, even a change of color or flooring won’t make a yawn-inducing interior come to life. To create character and distinction in an ordinary room, consider adding some structural detail with solid hardwood mouldings and trim. Hardwood mouldings lend star quality to any room. By creating contours and contrast, bold lines and fine detailing, moulding and millwork lend substance and distinction to an otherwise-ordinary room, adding the architectural punch that many modern homes are ...
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03.06.08Top Flooring Trends for 2008
Flooring (0)PRWeb When it comes to style and design European trends lead the way, and in the first quarter of 2008 that's definitely the case in new flooring trends. Lighter colors that have dominated the European market are now gaining popularity in North America, with more buyers seeking out flooring that has a faded or distressed appearance. "If you looked around at this year's Surfaces trade show you saw the influence of European design everywhere," said Rob Banks, executive vice-president, sales for BuildDirect. "Across different flooring categories you saw everything fading to lighter colors, and gray-washing and white-washing of all different types of ...
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02.26.08Home Trend: Flooring That’s Renewable
Flooring (0)by Janna Farley Argus Leader When Ann Burns was making decisions about her recent home remodeling project, she based many of her choices on the environment. "We started by replacing our inefficient furnace and air conditioner with a more efficient heat pump," she says. "And we replaced all the light bulbs in the house with the new energy-efficient bulbs." A casual visitor to Burns' home on the east side of Sioux Falls probably won't realize that. They will, however, notice the new bamboo flooring. "I really liked the look of the hand-scraped bamboo," she says. "I liked the uneven texture and the variation in color." But ...
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02.08.08Laminate Flooring Could Solve Problems
Flooring (0)Kathy van Mullekom The Ledger.com High-traffic and play areas in your home are best maintained when the flooring is a slick-style surface that's quick to mop. If vinyl is not your style, you may want to consider laminates that give you the look of wood without the wear over time. What is laminate? It's a photograph of wood embedded in composite panels, according to the North American Laminate Flooring Association. Laminate comes in no-nail, snap-together and floating-floor options. The surfaces are generally stain- and dent-resistant. No waxing or refinishing is needed, which is a bonus in kitchen and bath areas. When you consider ...
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02.06.08Create the Perfect Flooring Plan
Flooring (1)Tracy Pulley The Tennessean When Jamie Beckwith started planning the decor for her home in Franklin, Tenn., she knew it needed to complement the house's old-world characteristics. When it came to flooring, she chose materials that showed their handmade origins. From the wide planks of hand-hewn distressed walnut in the living room to the tumbled travertine in the foyer, Beckwith's floors reflect not only her home's personality but also an ever-growing trend in homebuilding toward high-end natural materials that are low maintenance with minimal environmental impact. "Everybody is going to a handcrafted look, getting away from flat flooring," says Dan Antes, owner of Nashville, ...
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01.29.08Harwood Flooring Options Let You Choose Quality and Price
Flooring (0)Mary Ellen Slayter Washington Post Some people knock on wood; others prefer to walk on it. Wood floors are available from more than 50 species of trees, both domestic and exotic, in a wide range of colors, hardness and prices. One way to judge the quality of unfinished hardwood flooring is through the grading system created by the Wood Flooring Manufacturers Association. Its grades are based primarily on color, grain and markings. The best -- and most expensive -- grades of wood are labeled "clear" and "select." But these days, not everyone is aiming for perfection. "People are going more toward the natural-looking characteristics of ...
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11.29.07Homeowners Focus on Cabinets, Countertops and Flooring When Thinking of Kitchen Remodeling
Flooring, Kitchen Countertops, Kitchen Remodeling (0)Portland, OR (PRWEB) November 29, 2007 -- ReliableRemodeler.com is announcing the findings of their recent homeowner survey. Regardless of whether they were in the midst of a kitchen remodel, or simply thinking about one, cabinets, countertops and flooring were the three features homeowners cited as being the most important. For homeowners who were currently doing a kitchen remodel 35 percent were replacing their cabinets, 24 percent were changing their flooring, and 21 percent were updating their countertops. Other popular elements were new appliances, a change of paint and replacing sinks. When asked what they would want to change if they ...
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07.02.07Vinyl Revival: New Luxury Tiles Put Flair on the Floor
Flooring (0)A new generation of "luxury vinyl tile" has been getting attention, and savvy customers are frequently choosing it above stone, ceramic, wood and wood laminates. Installing the luxury vinyl tiles in most cases requires troweling an adhesive onto the floor before the tiles are set, says flooring specialist Randy Jordan of High Desert Flooring. It's easier, cleaner and less time-consuming than working with ceramic or stone tile, which is set with cement and then grouted, he says. The new tiles can be cut by scoring with a utility knife and snapping apart, or by using a basic tile-cutting tool. Luxury vinyl tiles also ...
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