flooring options...

[Lauren Shafique]

more options question...

does anyone here have flooring that isn't "traditional" office carpeting in their space? wondering if anyone has put in laminate flooring and how you like it. or have you come up with some other alternative to ugly commerical carpeting for their treatment room or the waiting area? does it work or do you have regrets?

thanks for any and all comments in advance! i love to hear what others have used to make their office unique or special. my new office is totally unfinished so i can use anything i like to make my space really special. i'm so excited but all i keep seeing are dollar signs adding up! yikes~

 

[The Wise One]

i got a great deal at a hudson's on 5x8 rugs for $15.00. i bought 4 of them and layered them by 2 beside each other. gave extra padding under the walk space.

unfortunately the color i chose got dirty really quickly, and now i'm back at square one looking for options too. i think i'll probably just invest in a really thick larger rug as soon as i can.

good luck!
amanda

 

[sh0rtea d0o wh0p]

I have berber in my office. It is very neutral in color, a medium tan with lots of different colored flecks in it. It has the foam back under it, so it is not tacked or glued down. The size of my room is 12x11, and I believe the carpet cost me about $130. It has been in use since January of this year. I can see the wear pattern in it already. I figure it will need replacing by its 3rd year, hopefully I wont be in this building by then.

Christine

 

[Kelsey]

I've heard great things about bamboo as floor. I've seen cork used as floor as well. Some laminates are really squeeky...

 

[VMR]

terab, if you live near an Ikea store, I would check them out for decorating ideas/options. They have good prices.

http://www.ikea.com

 

[Annabel]

flooring

I have bamboo in my room and love it. Also I have a radient heat panel in the ceiling right above my workspace, feels almost like the sun shining down on them when its chilly, it quickly heats up and once off doesn't hold the heat.

Dale

 

[Edge Is Freakin Awesome]

christine ~ do you have padding under the berber or is it glued directly to cement?

stresssolutions ~ i have looked into cork and bamboo flooring and think they're great options. i think i'm leaning towards laminate but didn't really think about them being squeaky. yikes~ that wouldn't be good.

gessika~ we just had an ikea open up about 6 miles from my house! woo hoo! i love that store. actually, i'm looking into their flooring. it looks really nice and i've read some pretty good reviews about it. the cost for their flooring is 1/4 the price of the stuff i was looking at. i think i'll be cutting some cost and choosing them!

dale ~ what a brilliant idea! sounds awesome. i just looked it up really quick and it seems like a fantastic thing to do. who would i contact about having that installed? looks like it's not ridiculously expensive either ~ even better!

thanks so much everyone! keep the ideas coming....what a great way to learn.

 

[Da ProfessorX]

installing

I installed it myself, its almost as easy as installing a light fixture. The thermostat is a bit trickier though so if you don't have a handy streak or know someone that does you might want to get an electrician to do it.

 

[fatsausage]

christine ~ do you have padding under the berber or is it glued directly to cement?

Tera,

There is a foam pad attatched to the carpet. This type of carpet is pre stretched, so I do not have to worry about it warping. It is on top of vinyl flooring and is not glued down at all. It is screwed down by the doorways to keep people from tripping.

Christine

 

[jeffrey e]

stresssolutions ~ i have looked into cork and bamboo flooring and think they're great options. i think i'm leaning towards laminate but didn't really think about them being squeaky. yikes~ that wouldn't be good.

At the noisy salon where I spent a year, no one could walk anywhere on that laminate without squeeking...every step every shoe. The MT room was carpet, thankfully, and the restroom was tile. The squeeks were BAD.

I imagine that bamboo is quite expensive...although renewable.

 

[michael c]

Yeah, laminate is creaky, and it sounds like you're walking around in clogs. Not quiet at all, don't let the "quiet step technology" fool you.
t046

 

[ponderingincanada]

We did laminate in our yoga studio, and also my room. Before installing we screwed the sub floor down with hundreds of screws, used a high quality (rubber) under-lay, and after hundreds of classes and many laps around the table... no squeaks. The only complaint is that there are a few "chipped corners" in the studio, and it has a bit of a hollow sound with firm sole shoes. We chose the Home Depot $0.99 on sale laminate. Bamboo was an option, three times the price of laminate. Oak was out ar 5-6 times the price of laminate :wink:
My thoughts... hard floors don't absorb oil if spilled, don't soak up wax, clean easy, and you can add throw rugs for sound control and warmth if needed.

Darren

 

[Ruby]

My room currently has carpeting that is quiet and disguises any dirt or stains well. But I really want to tear it up one day and lay cork, like our upstairs. My feet will be so happy!

The reports of squeaking laminate floors is interesting. We have it on the first floor of our home, a very high-traffic layout. It's never squeaked...I have to wonder if the noise has to do more with how and where it is installed rather than the type of flooring itself.

 

[mjk]

MRSkitten, I think the squeaky laminates have more to do with the installation than anything. those floors are one of those things that you can get away with doing a poor job on, and no-one notices right away. In my experience, when they are installed properly and with care, they don't squeak.

For me, their drawback is that they are obvious to my libran senstivities about quality. Somehow they fell un-genuine and hollow. Which they usually are, because they are up off the sub-floor by a few inches.

It's not practical for a small space, but my favourite would be waxed vinyl composite flooring, like in schools and large institutional buildings. That's what I did in the past, wax those floors, refinish them. When they are perfectly clean, and waxed and polished, the surface is spotless and easy to maintain. Aside from the heavy-duty monthly maintenance, which makes this whole idea impractical for a small space. The part I would like is how they allow a crazy amount of traction when you're bare-foot.

My pet-peeve is having to change up how I'm applying pressure because my back leg is slipping out from under me (or the table is sliding along the floor away from me) That's why I consider traction important.

I would say carpet is the next best thing, but it's essentially a rag stapled to the floor that never gets washed. I find em kinda gross, really. They clean up fairly well with extractors, and it's not that hard to do. A small one rented from the grocery store would easily do a small space. Carpets are expensive, and they do wear out. Replacement is a hassle. The ones designed for high-traffic don't look good. So, what to do?

Cork sounds interesting, how would you clean that? Is it like cork for those bulletin boards?

A coffee shop I saw had this pebble floor. It was a bunch of pea-sized pebbles in a matrix of cement or something, all smoothed up level. How would you clean that? was my first thought, it looked nasty: it was yellow at the edges (original colour) and black in the traffic lanes. Nasty. The top was bumpy, but level overall, know what I mean?

I've seen bare concrete used effectively in some places. You strip everything down to bare concrete, and apply a sealer or sealer/wax. Looks really neat, you can see the swirl patterns in the concrete, and it takes on this brown tone in one of them I saw. It almost looks like polished petrified wood, if you've ever seen that.

Carpet is bs, in my opinion. I was at this terrible place for one month. They had me working on this monster of a chiro adjustment table. What a joke that place was, anyway, they wanted me to put down area rugs under the table to prevent oil stains. They said the landlord required this to protect his carpet. These rugs, on top of carpet, were impossible to work with. Always bunching up and junk. What a mess.

What do you guys think of that? Some of you rent out space to others, what's your take on this? Do you have a right to protect your room (carpet) from stains? Is it the therapist's responsibility? Isn't it just wear-and-tear? A case in point: In a very dirty move, my friend's employer charged him $60 bucks for oil stains on the treatment room carpet. That's bad enough on it's own, but what makes this particularly dirty is that he was leaving town 2 days later (she knew) and these rooms were collectively rented by a bunch of therapists: you would take whichever room was available that day. Thoughts?

Pearl

 

[thegubmint]

I've seen bare concrete used effectively in some places. You strip everything down to bare concrete, and apply a sealer or sealer/wax. Looks really neat, you can see the swirl patterns in the concrete, and it takes on this brown tone in one of them I saw. It almost looks like polished petrified wood, if you've ever seen that.

This is a vision I have for flooring in some future room of mine (I don't even know if it is a massage room or what). Stained concrete with luscious rugs here and there. Of course if it were a massage space, I'd have to be sure that common standing areas are nicely padded.

 

[chris ireland]

My studio space has concrete floors painted black. I'm not sure how the process was done, it was like that when I got there. It is pretty neat though, and doesn't feel/look as harsh as it sounds.

 

[CurlyQ]

I have to wonder if the noise has to do more with how and where it is installed rather than the type of flooring itself.

Negatory, at least in this salon, it was shoes to floor squeek. If you had on no shoes, there was no squeek. No squeeks from the dog feet, either. If you walked slow, if you walked fast, wet shoes, dry shoes, squeeks and slipperyness.

 

[Canadian Bacon]

oops. it's late...

 

[Mommy of 5]

Care of cork flooring is exactly like hardwood floors. It is NOT the stuff used for bulletin boards; it is much thicker and comes in a huge array of colors and textures (small grain, larger grain, etc.) and like laminates the flooring is sectioned with backing and ready to install over a properly-prepared surface. Like wood, it is extremely durable and wears beautifully but unlike wood it is warm and comfortable underfoot and has sueforum.xxx vibration and noise-dampening properties.

The carpet in my space is designed for high-traffic but looks really nice, dark background with an intricate Florentine design (after all this time it has yet to show any wear). They clean it for me on a regular basis, so I really cannot complain. I'd just prefer cork.

One of my clients has in one of her homes a stained concrete floor in the garage, and in addition to artistically staining it they flecked it with bits of metallic paint and then put a candy-coat finish topped with many layers of brilliantly-buffed paste wax. It looks absolutely luscious! This might be a fine example of someone's dream floor...not to my feet, though.

 

[I love Tacos!]

that's totally my dream floor mrskitten! i LOVE sparkles.

my plan is to have 2 different floor types. one for the waiting area and one for the treatment room. i have concrete floors now and have considered just doing something cool with the concrete but the problem is the floor sucks. it's uneven and it's ridiculously old. how old you ask? well, my buildings prior life was a green house and it's the same concrete floor. so, it's a problem enough as it is. i've got to figure out a way to level it and after that, figure out what to do with it from there. i've considered staining it. i've also seem some stuff called skimstone. it's really, really neat stuff.

so, i still haven't made up my mind....sheesh, so many decisions to make.