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June 20, 2020 by Terry Holmes Carpet & Flooring

Bamboo Flooring: The 3 Most Popular Types

Bamboo flooring makes a much smarter choice to install in your home because it will continue to perform for many years without any need for sanding or refinishing. Moreover, it makes an ecologically-friendly choice and helps preserve already compromised natural resources. Bamboo is a grass that grows at an astonishing rate of 100-110 cm in a single day. The fast growth of bamboo ensures a fast production rate and discourages the deforestation of traditional timbers on a large commercial scale.

A Sustainable and renewable flooring choice

Bamboo is also famous for its sustainability and renewability as its extensive root system continues to produce new plants after the harvest. Another ecological benefit of bamboo is that it is conducive to fresh air and produces 20% more oxygen than a comparable-sized hardwood forest. Bamboo crop is denser than timbers and provides excellent protection against soil erosion, storms and floods. Moreover, it provides shelter and food for the native animals.

Bamboo flooring is a type of flooring that is manufactured from the bamboo species “Moso” or “Mao”. Once the bamboo plants are harvested, they are brought to factories where they are split into pieces. Those pieces are then boiled to remove starch and moisture. They are kiln dried and glued together under high pressure into planks. They are then varnished, sanded or stained in a variety of colors.

Custom Home Flooring Installations in Birmingham

The Three Types of Bamboo Flooring

These are the three most common types of bamboo flooring: 

 

  1. Solid bamboo flooring

  2. Engineered bamboo flooring

  3. Strand Woven bamboo flooring

Solid Bamboo – The first type of flooring makes use of several solid strips that are adhered together to produce solid planks. Solid bamboo flooring is available in either vertical or horizontal style. In vertical bamboo flooring, the strips are not laid out flat and they lack the visible nodes or “knuckles”. Horizontal bamboo flooring, on the other hand, displays the natural nodes of the bamboo.

Engineered Bamboo flooring is manufactured with a wooden core, preferably oak, pine or plywood, with a thin delicate sheet of bamboo for the surface layer. It can easily be installed over a subfloor with the floating floor method of installation.

Strand Woven Bamboo flooring gives an attractive woven look and is made up of shredded strips of bamboo bound together under immense heat and extreme pressure. Strand Woven bamboo flooring is very strong, hard and durable. It can also be formed from strands of natural or carbonized bamboo.

 

 

Durable Bamboo Flooring

As far as the toughness and hardness of bamboo flooring is concerned, it outsmarts nearly all hardwood floorings on the market. It is 72% harder than Jarrah and nearly twice as hard as Maple. This attribute makes bamboo flooring an excellent choice to install in the high traffic areas of your home. Bamboo flooring tends to retain its finishing and great natural look in the presence of children and pets because bamboo is also a scratch-resistant material.

Bamboo flooring is not vulnerable to the attacks of termites, bugs, ants and pathogens. Moreover, you can confidently install it in your kitchen because bamboo is quite resistant to fire. It makes an easy-to-clean option as well and you can clean a spill with the help of a dry cloth or towel.

Call Holmes Flooring in Leeds, AL for a free estimate on bamboo flooring for your home or place of business.

Filed Under: Bamboo Flooring, Flooring, Wood Flooring Tagged With: Bamboo, home flooring

June 8, 2020 by Terry Holmes Carpet & Flooring

Working with Wood Flooring in your Alabama Home

There are basically two wood flooring options available to consumers: hardwoods and softwoods. If you choose to have hardwood flooring, you have three choices. Oak is a durable hardwood with a tight, dark grain. It is also the most popular wood flooring. The second most popular hardwood flooring is maple. It has a lighter color and has a less pronounced grain. The third type is ash. It is also popular, but not as popular as the first two. It has a uniform light texture and grain.

Among the softwoods, there are three popular choices too. The first is pine. Pine is often found in older homes. Another type is the birch. It is somewhat similar to pine, but usually has more knotholes. The third and last type is called fir. It has large patches of dark grain. If you cannot choose between the two types, there is also bamboo. A bamboo floor is more durable than most hardwoods. Or you could settle for specialty woods, if you have the budget. Specialty woods have a luxurious look about them. Popular choices include teak, cherry, and walnut.

Choose your hardwood flooring pattern

Now that you have chosen your wood type, let us move on to choosing the perfect pattern. The most common floor pattern is a straight one where the wood strips are laid parallel to each other along the length of the room. It is also the least expensive pattern. If you prefer to dress up your floor in a much nicer way, you may want to go for a diagonal pattern. A diagonal pattern makes for a nicer floor without much cost. It is done by laying the wood strips at a 45-degree angle to the walls.

Parquet and Herringbone Floor Patterns

 

Parquet is another popular hardwood pattern made up of individual square modules laid in crisscross fashion. The floor would look like a checkerboard.

Pictured below is an example of this style:

paraquet style example

Similar to the parquet, herringbone also has individual square modules with wood laid out, but in a diagonal angle. Perimeter border is a design accent that can be added to any wood flooring. The patterns are added to the edges of the wood floor. This pattern works for formal rooms like the dining room or the living room. 

This design is also used on the floors to separate adjacent rooms that do not have walls on them. This is done by installing a perimeter border between two adjacent rooms, giving a visual impression that the rooms are distinct from each other without interrupting the open flow. You’ve probably seen a herringbone style hardwood floor before, but you might not have known the name of the design pictured below until just now:

herringbone

Choosing the right floor stain

Next on the decision list is the choice of stain colors. If you wish to go “natural,” choose the natural stain color. It is wood color in its basic form. Light is popular because it darkens the grain and adds to a subtle tone to the wood. Medium stain is also quite popular. It is darker than light, giving both the grain and wood an obvious color. Dark stain gives floors a rich feel. But, this stain usually makes a room feel dark. If you are still undecided, you might opt for a custom stain color. This design includes a natural wood floor finish with a forest green perimeter border.

 

Too much to choose from?

If you’re overwhelmed with all the choices, Terry Holmes Flooring in Leeds is here to help. We offer expert in-home consultation and we can bring many different wood flooring samples to your home so you can see how they look with your existing decor. Simply give us a call or fill out our contact form to schedule your appointment with our local Alabama wood flooring experts.

 

About Us

 

Terry Holmes has been operating in the Leeds and Gardendale areas for decades now. His Showroom is just minutes from I-459 and includes carpet, hardwood and tile flooring samples from manufacturers like Shaw and DreamWeaver. Click here for directions to our retail location.

Filed Under: Hardwood Flooring, Kitchen Flooring, Wood Flooring Tagged With: hardwood patterns, herringbone pattern, parquet, wood flooring, wood stain

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1435 9th Street    |    Leeds, Alabama    |    35094
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