In: Home
8 Nov 2009When building or reworking a bathroom, people avoided using hardwood flooring in those spaces. The mantra that designers and architects have stuck to is wood and water don’t mix.
The inevitably damp environment in a loo as well as certain spills and splashes have the ability to warp wood flooring, rendering it unattractive and encouraging the growth of doubtless destructive and dangerous molds.
Nevertheless, new finishes for hardwood flooring and creative designs are making wooden floors in bogs aviable usable selection.
To start with, you have to choose a suitable wood to use. Choose a hardwood flooring rather than a softwood floor, as softwood tends to soak up ambient moisture more, making it more exposed to damage. Particularly tough and robust woods that could work in the bathroom are oak, maple, cherry, ash, walnut and hickory.
Polyurethane finishes on the hardwood flooring make the floors resistant to nearly all normal bathroom conditions and should work in all but the most continually damp and wet conditions. This finish uses manmade resin, plasticizers and other film-forming elements to form a watertight seal that remains intact, sans peeling, when the wood expands and contracts.
Even allowing for this finish, certain precautions need to be taken in the bathroom. For example, major and even small spills should be cleaned up quickly . Leaks from the tub and toilet need to be addressed immediately, one thing that ought to be handled regardless of the flooring you choose but especially important with wood floors.
Other minor additions in your bath can add protection for your hardwood surface and make upkeep easier for you. For example, putting mats with rubber bottoms round the wet areas, like the toilet and the tub or shower, will give an everlasting moisture absorber that will prevent the trouble of running around paranoid and wiping up every miniscule splash. One more similar solution is installing a strip of stone or ceramic flooring round the wet parts and hardwood in the rest of the space. This could give you a totally water resistant area in vulnerable part of the bath while adding to the overall design of the rest room and still offering you the heat and comfort of hardwood flooring.
Hardwood surfaces give a space warmth and style that is unmatched by any other material. The physical heat the floors provide is also a fascinating feature, particularly on winter mornings when the cold ceramic tiles make getting up that much more hard.
Their peerless versatility, design and flexibility have made them a prime material for each other room in the home and now new finishes are making them a realistic alternative for bathrooms too.
If you are not confident , however , or are unhappy to take on the minor upkeep issues that come with hardwood surfaces in the bathroom maybe you ought to consider ceramic tiles produced to look like wood. You may still get the warm look of hardwood without even the capability for water related issues. To find the righ ones be certain to glance through all the main tile saws and tile saw manufacturers websites.
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