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| If your house is laid out like most, I'd think again about wood (or bamboo) in the entry, largely on symbolic grounds. Entry is for strangers, and only when they are 'welcome' into the heart of the home should they be allowed onto the 'warmer' surface of a wood floor. Also, consider the direction of the planks: better if you can lay it so the lines are drawing people into the home, not laid across their path, though this is a secondary consideration. Many people- especially people living in rural areas- don't really use their front door much anyway, so it may not matter much.
That may sound corny, but there's a practical aspect too. Wet, dirty shoes can make short work of a wood-floor finish. Even if you go to bamboo, which is usually a harder material than wood (oak), the finish isn't. Don't know about today, but bamboo used to have limited colors available.
Traditional-style homes would not have bamboo floors either. Most traditional would be oak in the Living part and Maple in the Utility parts (kitchen).
If it's a prefinished floor, I wouldn't recommend it in the kitchen. Prefinished will have some bevel (smaller is usually better) at the edges of each 'plank' that can make kitchen cleanup a nightmare. Also, prefinished floors will require sanding down past that bevel when they eventually do need refinishing. That may be a lot of sanding...
All that said, I do like bamboo for its green aspects and its informal, contemporary look. Bottom line, don't buy flooring (other than maybe carpet or vinyl) based on price or how quickly it goes down- it'll be there a long, long time if you do it right, and it's a big job to change it out later. | |
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Looking for wood flooring suggestions or advice.
