Flooring articles

Granite: tile and countertops
Granite, an increadibly dense and hard-working material, comes in an amazing array of colors and textures. Granite tiles that are available in various sizes and thicknesses are used for indoor and outdoor applications for flooring, cladding walls, or pavers. Granite slabs are used for fabricating kitchen countertops, vanity tops, and other surfaces.
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Limestone Flooring and countertops
Limestone comprises a broad family of different types of stone which vary significantly in character. Limestone is softer than igneous rocks such as granite, nevertheless it shares a timeless and monumental quality that is common to all types of stones. Some varieties of limestone are very hard and dense which makes them suitable for most interior and exterior applications including kitchen and bath countertops.
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Marble: Flooring, countertops and fireplaces
Marble flooring and marble details such as fireplace surrounds and mantels add a rich, elegant touch to any space. Polished marble is usually prefered for formal style interiors and honed and tumbled marble is more suitable for contemporary interiors where a softer, warmer look is desired.
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Slate Tile Flooring
Rustic and earthy slate with its vivid colors and textures can be interpreted as a log-cabin rustic or sleek contemporary depending on the surrounding elements. The durability of slate and its ability to withstand wear makes it an excellent choice for many surfaces around the house: entryways, hallways, bathrooms, kitchens, patios, and other spaces.
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Tavertine Tile and Flooring
Travertine color palette usually resides within the confines of earth tones ranging from almost white and pale ivory to rich shades of red and brown. In most types of travertine there are noticeable color and veining variations that affect the overoll coloration of travertine flooring or other travertine surface.
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Tumbled marble
The process of tumbling gives stone a rustic and time worn look and smoothes out the edges. Tumbled marble tile and mosaics can be employed in spaces where the old world feel is desired.
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Classic Look Ceramic and Porcelain Tile
Ceramic and porcelain tiles in the Classic style emphasize elegance reminiscent of the artistic style of ancient Greek and Roman art. These floor and wall tiles keep in mind proportion and harmony to create a refined and graceful feeling in your home.
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Prefinished Hardwood Flooring Installation
Flooring installation can transform a home and often has a high rate of return on investment. The right floor will make a dramatic difference in a room's function - for example, a wood floor in a bathroom provides a warm alternative to tile.
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Laminate Floor Installation
Types of Laminate Installation. Glued laminate flooring: This type of laminate flooring has been in use for a long time. The specially formulated glue is applied to the tongue and grooved areas of each plank. This offers excellent bonding. Pre-glued laminate flooring: In this sort of laminate, the glue is already applied to the tongues and grooves and makes for easier and quicker installation.
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Ceramic tile installation
Ceramic tile is the most durable flooring you can install. It stands up well to water, making it popular in kitchens, baths, and entry halls. It's also low maintenance, making it popular with practically everyone. Installation, however, is labor-intensive. Tiling requires mixing mortar, setting tile, applying grout, sealing the tile, and unless you're installing over a concrete pad, backerboard must also be installed.
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Basement flooring options – which floor works best?
Picking floors for the basement can be tricky business because basements often come with a set of restrictions that make you creep around every possible flooring option with the fear of impending doom in the form of moisture looming in the future. Just consider all of the options you have, like hardwood floor, laminate, ceramic and porcelain tile, natural stone tile, for example, and make an informed decision.
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Ceramic Tile. Floor Tile. Wall Tile. Ceramic Tile care.
Ceramic tile is arguably the most versatile material for both floors and walls. It is easy to clean, extremely long lasting, does not absorb smell, water or allergens, is fireproof, can be installed in any part of the house and comes in an infinite array of colors and patterns to suit any style or design.
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Hardwood Floors in Bathroom
When building or remodeling a bathroom, people have shied away from using hardwood flooring in those spaces. The mantra that designers and architects have stuck to is “wood and water don’t mix”.
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Jerusalem stone, Limestone Tile
Jerusalem stone is a particular type of limestone quarried in the Hebron Mountains. The color palette of Jerusalem stone varies from ivory and off-white to warm golds and earthy grays. The patterning and veining of Jerusalem stone is subtle; the overoll neutral and earthy appearance of Jerusalem stone has made it a popular choice of material for flooring, wall cladding, and other applications.
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Hardwood Floor Design Patterns
When choosing hardwood floors for your home, take into account more than just the species and stain of the wood you want to use for flooring. Think about how it will look installed in different patterns and designs as well as finishing touches like borders, mosaic medallions and decorative borders.
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Marble Applications: Countertops, sinks, flooring, fireplaces
There is no doubt that marble's most popular places in the modern home are in the kitchen and bathroom. Marble has retained its place as the supreme material for countertops and vanities. A natural marble vanity or sink is really the one and only choice for the discriminating homeowner. While marble has the characteristic of being etched and stained by water and chemicals, modern sealants have reduced this risk significantly.
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Marble Countertop and matching Floors
The two most commonly employed kinds of marble for flooring are the white and black slabs and tiles. Both lend a unique character to the surroundings and can, under artistic guidance, be mixed for stunning effect. With your marble counter or vanity top it can create an unsurpassed harmony.
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Where Can Travertine Be Used?
Travertine is one of the most popular materials used today in stone floors, exteriors, countertops, backsplashes, bathrooms, and walls. Quarried from stone that is best described as a cross between marble and limestone, travertine has been a popular building material for thousands of years because of both its durability and the ability of masons to shape it to fit just about any purpose. Ever heard of the Roman Coliseum? Travertine.
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Solid Hardwood Flooring vs Engineered
One of the properties of solid wood flooring is that it expands and contracts with changes in your home's relative humidity. Normally, installers compensate for this movement by leaving an expansion gap between the floor and the wall. Base molding or quarter round is traditionally used to hide the extra space. The other very important characteristic of solid wood floors is that they react to the presence of moisture.
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What to Look For in Selecting Kitchen Flooring. Kitchen Floor Design.
Many homeowners tend to make the mistake of not giving enough thought to flooring options. The right flooring can make a big difference in a kitchen. For instance flooring with light or neutral tones creates an impression of light and space. Stronger colors might work in a small kitchen, but not in a larger one.
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What about installing wood in high traffic areas like kitchens?
The urethane finishes on most new wood floors stand up to water and traffic, bringing wood flooring into bathrooms, kitchens, and other higher-stress areas. These finishes resist wear and stains better than other finishes and require no stripping, no buffing and no waxing. High traffic areas include exterior doorways, hallways, mud rooms, and the areas in front of the sink, stove and refrigerator.
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Stone and ceramic tile Kitchen Flooring
Limestone, tumbled marble, and slate tiles are among the most elegant flooring choices available. These tiles share properties with marble, granite, and other stone materials, but are valued as much for their interesting textures as for their colorations. Natural stone tiles must be sealed to prevent stains.The right wall treatments can really bring out the flooring, as well as the other materials in your kitchen.
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Laminate Kitchen Flooring
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Hardwood Floor Grade, select, better, traditional,character
When a log is milled into flooring at the factory the wood is picked for grade (appearance) the better or more uniform the appearance the higher the grade. Select & Better Grade - The most uniform strips with only subtle natural variations in color. Exclusive Grade - A mixed selection of strips composed of about 75% Select & Better grade and 25% Traditional grade.
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Hardwood and Moisture, wood flooring shrinkage
Moisture content in solid wood is defined as the weight of water in wood expressed as a percentage of the weight of oven-dry wood. Weight, shrinkage, strength and other properties depend on the moisture content of wood. In trees, moisture content may be as much as 200 percent of the weight of wood substance. After harvesting and miring, the wood will be dried to the proper moisture content for its end use.
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Remodeling materials
Contemporary design places the focus on material quality. While traditional styles of decorating have tended to emphasize applied finishes, today's interiors allow the unique characteristics of wood, stone, glass, and metal to speak for themselves. From smooth matte plywood to translucent perspex, from cool, classic limestone to burnished concrete, the scope has never been greater.
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Choosing hardwood flooring. Wood Types
Both the physical characteristics of wood and its widespread availability have accounted for its dominance in the stucture, finishing, and cladding or buildings over the centuries - as basic frameworks, floors, roofs, window frames, interior trim and panelling - not to mention the use in furniture. Relatively light, wood can be shaped and jointed to create a wide range of different types of structure...
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Manufactured Wood
Today, the term wood embraces many types of manufactured products, such as plywood, medium density fiberboard (MDF), chipboard and hardboard - processed materials which have tended to be used in a workhorse capacity as linings or carcases but which are now increasingly seen as final finishes. Then there is an equivalent range of formats, everything from solid planks, tiles, strips, sheets and blocks to thinly veneered boards and panels.
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Hardwood and Softwood Flooring Wood
Hardwoods, as a group, are much more varied than softwoods. They grow in both temperate and tropical areas, may be deciduous or evergreen and comprise a wide range of species that differ spectacularly in color and texture. Most are much more expensive than softwoods. Many species are in serious decline worldwide. Throughout history, hardwoods have been prized for their beauty. strength, durability and resistance to pests, or for the ease with which they could be carved.
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Commercial hardwood flooring
The Janka hardness test measures the ability of a wood species to withstand damage and degradation. The species at the top of the list are harder and more durable. Ash is widely used in furniture-making and as flooring. It has a straight grain and fairly coarse texture and is tough enough for all-purpose use. The paler shades of cream and biscuit are moset typical, but some varieties are darker. Durability: elastic, hard, excellent shock resistance.
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Designing with glass
The use of glass in the interior is indivisible from that essential element, natural light. The transparency of glass allows our homes to be saturated in daylight. Glass has that quality that gives a structure a certain ambiguous, floating quality. In contemporary designs, where flexibility and clarity are prized, glass fulfils an important role in creating divisions between indoors and out and between individual interior spaces that are as minimal and discreet as possible.
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Wood Flooring Finishes.
Wood Floor Finishes create lasting beauty and requires minimal care with today's modern technology in wood floor finish products. The right finish protects wood flooring from wear, dirt and moisture while giving the wood an attractive color and sheen. Today most wood floors are finished with a stain and a top coat. Technology has provided a wide selection of wood flooring finishes, each with its own distinct benefits and appearances.
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Ceramic tile grades
Buying a tile in the grade that matches the use of the ceramic tile in your home will guarantee that you do not spend unnecessary money on super strong tiles that won’t even get a chance to flex their muscles in your lightly used bathroom, for example. Floor tile should be stronger than wall tile and heavily used areas like kitchens and bathroom should have appropriate kitchen floor tile and bathroom floor tile to wear well. Below are the classifications used for ceramic tile.
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How to clean ceramic and porcelain tile.
Ceramic and porcelain tiles are some of the easiest products, both when used as floor tile and wall tile, to take care of. For basic cleaning just sweep or use a vacuum. To wash unglazed tile floor or wall use soap-less detergent (not an all-purpose cleaner) and a cloth or sponge, and for glazed tile use non-oil-based detergent and cloth or sponge...
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Ceramic Tile Installation Patterns
Where three or more sizes of tile are to be used to create (accomplish) a modular pattern, attention to each tile’s size (caliber/calibration) MUST be addressed in order to achieve an overall layout with regard to the grout joints.
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Ceramic Tile Installation Hints. Patterning Tile Possibilities
Patterning is really a great design option that some people sometimes fail to consider. The combinations and/or finishes are endless, and can dramatically change the look of you room, as well as reflect ones traits of personality and style. When it comes to tile flooring, it is never suitable to just think “square” when given so many sizes and options. Remember, it is a personal preference, so pick the pattern that works best for your project!
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Designing with tile. Ceramic Tile Application
A distinct advantage of ceramic tile is the sheer variety of colors, textures, shapes and patterns, everything from solid colors to pictorial motifs, from high gloss to matt, from embossed to relief patterns. Dados, beadings and other forms of edge trim and mathching detail are also widely avalable. Modern tile designs range from crisp Op-art geometrics to hyper-realistic fruit, vegetables and other natural images taken from photographs transferred to tile.
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How to choose ceramic tile for showers?
For shower flooring, consider using unglazed bathroom ceramic tile if you want to have the most slip-resistant surface. The rugged surface texture and matte finish of these tiles give them good slip-resistant qualities for use in wet areas. If you buy and install unglazed tiles for your bathroom floor, they will need to be cleaned frequently because they absorb oil and stains quite easily.
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