Floors are an unavoidable fact of life in this gravity conquered world. It seems to be little more than an expanse of necessary eye candy. But flooring can have as much impact on the feel of a home as any other element.
And, of course, A Pattern Language has a pattern to capture the approach we should take with flooring.
Floor Surface (233):
- Problem: We want the floor to be comfortable, warm to the touch, inviting. But we also want it to be hard enough to resist wear, and easy to clean.
- Therefore: Zone the house, or building, into two kinds of zones: public zones, and private or more intimate zones. Use hard materials like waxed, red polished concrete, tiles, or hardwood in the public zones. In the more intimate zone, use an underfloor of soft materials, like felt, cheap nylon carpet, or straw matting, and cover it with cloths, and pillows, and carpets, and tapestries. Make a clearly marked edge between the two — perhaps even a step — so that people can take their shoes off when they pass from the public to the intimate.
This ties in closely to…
Intimacy Gradient (127):
- Problem: Unless the spaces in a building are arranged in a sequence, which corresponds to their degrees of privateness, the visits made by strangers, friends, guests, clients, family, will always be a little awkward.
- Therefore: Lay out the spaces of a building so that they create a sequence which begins with the entrance and the most public parts of the building, then leads into the slightly more private areas, and finally to the most private domains.
In our house, the entrance and main level are public spaces. The lower level is semi-public, the upstairs landing and laundry room are semi-private, and the bedrooms are the most private spaces. Combining that with the flooring guidelines led us to
- Hardwood for the main level and all the stair landings: these public and semi-private spaces need durable flooring
- Tile for the entrance and the wet areas (laundry room, full bathrooms): these areas take the hardest and dirtiest wear
- Carpet for the bedrooms: the softness of the materials provides comfort and emphasizes their private nature
The media room is a bit of an exception. Its status as a semi-public space might suggest hardwood. However, since sound reflection is something that needs to be controlled, we will use carpet. The office and powder room on the main floor are not technically public spaces, either, but hardwood is a reasonable choice for them because of their adjacency to the public areas and the way they are used.
Flooring in depth
Hardwood
Hardwood dominates our floors. Its pervasive presence makes a major contribution to the character of our home. Because of this, we spent a lot of time making our choice. The obvious consideration is the type and color of the wood, but there are other aspects to consider.
Structure
The first consideration is wood structure. Solid hardwood is what it sounds like: each board is a single solid piece. Engineered hardwood is made of several layers: a top layer of the desired wood above a few layers of a manufactured wood product such as particle board or plywood.
Solid wood flooring can be completely sanded and refinished 5-7 times, since the wood is the same all the way down. Engineered flooring has a thinner layer of the surface wood; the better products can handle 3-5 sandings. Engineered flooring is much more stable. Wood expands and contracts based on temperature and humidity. The several layers in an engineered plank mitigate this by expanding/contracting at different rates. This allows for the use of wider, tightly seamed planks.
This choice was easy: we decided to go with engineered wood. Our builder recommended it, and the stability and precision of the boards was appealing. The wear layer is 1/4″, which is on the thicker end for engineered flooring, and the refinishable layer of solid wood (before the tounge & groove and nails become visible) isn’t necessarily much thicker.
Finish
The second consideration is finish. We considered polyurethane coat and oil finish. A poly coat is basically a liquid plastic that coats the floor. It completely covers and protects the wood, and leaves a smooth, glossy finish. It needs little maintenance, can be mopped, and gives a much glossier look. The disadvantage is that the poly coat will collect noticeable scratches over time, and cannot easily be spot-repaired: a large section (up to the entire room) has to be refinished to keep the coat consistent. In contrast, an oil finish gives a more natural look to the wood and allows spot-repairs. The disadvantage is that it requires an annual application of oil and requires more care when cleaning it. A big difference from polyurethane is that an oil finish does not create a barrier, and so the wood will acquire more wear (including stains) over time.
This was a tougher decision. We weren’t attracted to the poly coat finishes. It doesn’t fit the natural look we want on the main level, and the propensity to show scratches was not appealing. While a yearly re-oil of the all the wood floor is far from ideal, we were attracted to the natural aging gained by an oil finished floor. We like materials that age gracefully, and having a floor that will accept changes fits that desire.
Yuval recommended Navarre Oiled Floors. They are wide-plank, thick-veneered, engineered, oil-finished hardwoods. We wanted something fairly subtle so that it wouldn’t overwhelm the room. We eliminated the options that were too red, too yellow, too dark, or too busy (mainly in the exotic woods). We ended up going with Montauban, a nice white oak.
Hardwood is installed fairly early in the finishing process so that cabinets, trim, etc. can be installed on top. But it is more easily damaged than tile, so it needs to protected during the rest of construction. They ended up using the boxes that the flooring came in to protect the floor. They are taped down (with painter’s tape) so they don’t slide around, and the edges are left clear for trim installation. I thought it was a clever solution.
Tile
Keeping to the theme of natural-looking materials, we decided to use a stone-look tile throughout. In the bathrooms a bit of texture will help to prevent the floor from getting too slippery when wet. Many of the tiles we looked at can be used outside, which would allow us to unify the interior and exterior portions of the entry with the same flooring. Yuval recommended Ecotech tiles, which we really liked. We settled on the Ecogreen in the structured (rougher) finish for all the tiled floors in the house.
Carpet
Carpet is installed at the end of construction to prevent unnecessary wear or damage. We have just started looking at products and colors. We will probably choose a light- to medium-grey color for the carpets in the bedrooms. It should be fairly neutral, and work well with dark woods (in the master suite), and whatever paint colors we use in the second bedrooms. The media room will take a darker color, possibly something similar to the Bordeaux color from our color palette.
The media room will use a fairly dense carpet that will wear better, but isn’t quite as cushy. The bedrooms should have less traffic, so we will use something a bit plusher and more comfortable on the feet. Yuval suggested a couple simple nylon green carpets: Americana (denser) and Mica (plusher), both from Masland. We are also looking at Karastan SmartStrand carpets, which are an interesting green carpet made from corn. As novice fiber nerds, we were required to look briefly at wool carpets. These are generally considered green, but are more expensive, not as plush, and are generally looped carpets (less good with clawed critters).
Conclusion
Despite having only three types of flooring, a lot of effort has gone into choosing exactly the right material and style for each portion of the house. It needs to fit the intimacy gradient, be appropriate for the amount and type of wear, and give the appropriate character to each room.
With the majority of the flooring installed, we are pleased with our choices. Having flooring goes a long way toward making our building feel like a real house and really starts to give a sense for how nice of a space it will be.