Cork Flooring?

[JoyNChrist]

Does anybody have experience with this?

It's looking like the deal on the grandparents' house will go through in the next month, and we discussed remodeling with them and they were totally cool with whatever we want to do. Our one "big thing" is replacing all the flooring in the house. I was reading some things on some home improvement blogs about cork flooring, particularly for the kitchen. Just wondering if anybody has seen/installed it.

If it matters, we have a 3yo son, twins on the way, and a Great Dane that lives indoors. So any flooring choice needs to be kid and dog friendly.

[khalloc]

I've seen pictures on Gardenweb.com, but its not for me. I dont really like the look of it. It looks like small pieces of cork mashed together into a tile. I guess I am more traditional and like 3/4" hardwood myself, but i have heard cork is nice to stand on. No idea if it would hold up to the big dog though. Good luck!

[crl]

I LOVE cork flooring. I think it is beautiful and practical. We put it in our first kitchen and it still looked good when we sold the place 2 years later. We then put it in our next kitchen and it looked good when we sold that place a year later. No dogs and only one kid, but we're not particularly careful about floors.

It is warm underfoot (I'm always barefoot so I notice), easy to stand on (a thousand times better than tile) and easy to maintain (just clean like you would hardwoods.) Also, we dropped glasses and they bounced instead of breaking--handy in a kitchen.

I would absolutely put it a kitchen again.

Catherine

[Andi98989]

We have it in our kitchen at work and I *hate* it. I refused to consider it for our house. It has been very easy to scratch up and is pretty streaky. Our designers know what kind of foot traffic the area gets (20 person office), and we didn't cheap out on the product. Pretty much everyone in our office wears soft-soled shoes, too, not heels or anything.

I would be super nervous having a dog on cork flooring.

[MamaSnoo]

We researched this for our kitchen because I liked the look. We did not go with it because we were advised not to use it because of concern about holding up when exposed to water. Might be nice in other living spaces (not baths)?

[JoyNChrist]

We researched this for our kitchen because I liked the look. We did not go with it because we were advised not to use it because of concern about holding up when exposed to water. Might be nice in other living spaces (not baths)?

Hmm...that's odd because the only places I've heard of people using it has been in kitchens or bathrooms. Craziness. :shrug:

[crl]

Hmm...that's odd because the only places I've heard of people using it has been in kitchens or bathrooms. Craziness. :shrug:

My understanding is that the water concerns stem from the glueless click and other pergo like versions of cork flooring. Water can seep into the seams and ruin the floor. My research was that it was okay in a kitchen, although if your dishwasher floods while you are out your cork flooring is probably ruined. That would be true of any pergo type flooring option. It might also be true of hardwoods and some other flooring options as well. I've heard that this kind of cork flooring really shouldn't be used in a kids' bathroom for this reason. There are glue-down cork tiles which are supposed to be better for that kind of application. We had the glueless click cork in both kitchens and had no problems with water.

Catherine