Cork Floor

When my wife and I bought our house it had nice (if a little soft) hardwood floors throughout, except for the room we spend 90% of our time in. The family room came with cheap berber that was already pretty old, because the room is a 70s era addition the carpet sits on top of a linoleum floor that sits on some plywood on top of a cement slab. We need new flooring in the room, not carpet or hardwood that doesn't match the rest of the house, so I started looking at bamboo and cork, fell in love with cork.

Once we decided on cork I started looking into installation and was pretty pleased. In our old house we installed 3/4 inch hardwood, pain-in-the-ass. I hate jobs that require me to rent tools, not just because it's expensive, but because I have to learn how to use it while the meter's running, stresses me out. The other drawback to hardwood is that most of your planks will be slightly warped and you will need to will them to conform to what we humans call "straight". There's also a tremendous amount of cutting to do, a lesson in margin of error.

Cork is pretty easy if everything I've read is true, snap together, adhere with mastic; the hardest part will be preparing and curing the plywood. The finishes are beautiful, cork wears better and looks more "organic" than hardwood, so I'm psyched to get started.

Check back in a few months and I'll have some results to post. I know it's not exactly materialism but I really want a shiny new floor.