Floor Talk!

I was tagged in a game an exercise to get to know fellow bloggers by Christine Whittemore . She is the highly motivated and generous author of Flooring The Consumer and co-author of Carpetology.

I am a December baby - snow is one of earth’s best floorcovering!

The rules of the game are simple

1. Mention the person who tagged you and create a link back to them.
2. Pick your month of birth.
3. Copy-paste the traits for all the twelve months (see below).
4. Highlight the traits that apply to you and if you would like write some wit or not.
5. Tag 12 people and let them know by visiting their blogs and leaving a comment for them.
6. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve done it!

DECEMBER’S CHILD IS: Loyal and generous. Sexy. Patriotic. Active in games and interactions. Impatient and hasty. Ambitious. Influential in organizations. Fun to be with. Loves to socialize. Loves praises. Loves attention. Loves to be loved. Honest and trustworthy. Not pretending. Short tempered. Changing personality. Not egotistic. Take high pride in oneself. Hates restrictions. Loves to joke. Good sense of humor. Logical.

In more detail…. (more…)

Because of the success of What Feeding the Bears and Ruining Your Hardwood Floors has in Common, today will begin a series of maintenance guides for all types of floor covering. Stay tuned for more!

Tile Maintenance

Sooner or later, time and traffic, life and living, will take its toll on any floor covering. Ceramic tile is no exception. But take heart, keeping your tile as clean and beautiful as its first days in your home just takes know-how. In fact, understanding the best methods to care for your ceramic flooring will help maintain its beauty and keep it close to its original condition. Plus, knowing what’s expected of you regarding upkeep can be a determining factor in which type of ceramic tile to purchase. Knowing how to care for and maintain your ceramic floor will help keep your investment beautiful, durable and a source of pride for years to come.

§ It’s important to sweep a tile floor regularly. Dirt can adhere to the surface of tile, particularly styles with a textured surface. Regular sweeping loosens and removes most of this dirt. Vacuum attachments are useful to collect dirt along edges or in between tiles.

§ Use walk-off mats at all exterior entrances. This helps to minimize and contain dirt being tracked in at entryways.

§ Remember to shake the mats often to remove the dirt. If the dirt is not removed, it will be tracked back in and may scratch the floors. This reduces the amount of dirt being tracked across the tile floor, and reduces the wear to the finished surface. Also, be aware that black rubber mats can stain floors.

§ Ceramic tile floors should be damp-mopped regularly using the manufacturer’s recommended grout and tile cleaners. For heavier soil, you can spot clean the floor with a sponge or clean cloth using the recommended cleaners. Rinse well and wipe dry for more shine.

§ Textured tiles may require mild scrubbing with a soft brush or electric polisher/scrubber. After cleaning with a mild detergent rinse thoroughly with clean, warm water to help remove any leftover residue. If needed, wipe dry with a clean towel to remove any film.

§ For soft water situations you may need to use an all-purpose cleaner. Apply to the floor, let stand for 3 - 5 minutes, lightly scrub with a sponge, rinse well and you’re home free – dirt free too.

§ Use cleaning products available from your local grocery store or flooring retailer for heavier cleaning tasks. Products are available that can be used to remove soap scum, hard water deposits, and mildew stains.

§ Consult the cleaning product’s instructions to make sure the cleaning product is compatible with your type of tile. The wrong type cleaning product can do more damage than good.

§ After cleaning, rinse well and wipe dry. This is important for optimum shine and maximum pride.

§ Avoid using steel wool, scouring powders, or other abrasives. These can scratch the finish of the tile. Also, do not use vinegar as it is an acid.

§ Don’t use bleach or ammonia based cleaners. These products can permanently discolor your grout if used too often.

§ Do not clean glazed tile with oil-based cleaners. This can leave a hazy film on the tile.

§ Try to clean up spills as quickly as possible. This is important so that the grout or tile doesn’t become stained.

§ Tile can crack under extreme force or pressure. While ceramic tile is considered very durable, it’s not indestructible and may crack or chip under extreme force.

§ Take the proper precautions when moving heavy objects across your tile floor. Get a small army to help you move that grand piano. Once the damage is done, it cannot be repaired.

§ Cover furniture and table legs with protectors. This will guard your floor against damage.

§ Keep extra tiles after the installation. Keep in mind that if a repair is necessary in the future, the replacement product may be a slightly different dye lot and/or texture than the initial installation. However, the good news is that, with time and usage, the repair will blend in with the original product.

§ Areas exposed to water need to be caulked on a regular basis. Once the tile has been laid and grouted, it’s your responsibility to maintain areas exposed to water by caulking. Caulking will prevent expensive subsurface damage, as well as keep the tiled areas looking their best. Depending on your lifestyle, sealing new tile and grout may be an option.

§ Seal your grout for added protection. After the installation process is complete and the grout has had ample time to cure, sealing the grout and tile can provide protection from dirt and spills by slowing down the staining process. Please note that sealing is not required on glazed tiles.

§ Grout colorants are available for stained, damaged or undesired colored grout. Today there are also innovative grout colorants you should be aware of. These products can transform the original color of grout and in some cases can act as a form of sealant. Please be aware that non-epoxy grout joints should be treated with a silicone sealer.

§ Consult the manufacturers’ recommendations. For more maintenance information specific to your ceramic tile flooring, remember to ask a professional or the manufacturer.

For more information on how to clean ceramic tile, click here.

Choosing the right grout color can change the way your whole tile project looks. The grout color helps tie in each tile to appear as one complete floor. The function of grout is to protect the edges of the tile from being chipped or cracked. When trying to choose a grout color, it is helpful to look at the sample on all four corners of the tile, preferably in the space where the tile will be installed. It is also helpful to place several different colors near the sample you are considering. This can easily help rule out some colors while making some colors a clearer choice.

When choosing a grout color, there are several different approaches you can take.

Blend - Choosing a grout color that compliments or almost matches the tile will make the floor look more even and uniform overall. In this case, the grout almost disappears. The way I look at it is, you paid for the tile and not the grout, so let the tile stand out instead of the grout. Don’t worry if the color doesn’t match exactly. As long as it blends and is in the same family, you are ok.

Contrast - Contrasting grout is sometimes a desired look, but will make the floor appeared more checkerboard. This is unavoidable when intentionally choosing a checkerboard pattern tile. When using a multicolored mosaic tile, you can’t possibly choose one color. In this case, a contrasting grout can simply serve as a neutral background. Choosing a specific color could change the overall color appearance of the mosaic.

Accent -With today’s popular styles of tile, they are no longer a solid color. This can make choosing grout a little bit more challenging. Often, these tiles have a lot of range of color. In this case, any color grout that matches or blends with the family of colors in the tile will look great. Sometimes, there will be a more solid color along the edges of the tile. In this case, you can choose to highlight or accent that color by choosing a grout color similar to the color along the edge. This will make that border more visible. Most of the time, it is more desirable to choose a color with in the color ranges of the tile rather than the color on the edge of the tile.

Another way to accent with grout is to intentionally use a color that is not in the floor tile, but perhaps the wall color. For example, a black and white checkerboard floor can have a deep red grout to compliment red walls or red accents in the room.

Things to consider:

• White grout can be bleached and should mostly be used only with pure white tiles
• Light colored grouts should be sealed in heavy traffic areas
• Darker colored grout hides more dirt
• Dark grout can fade from sunlight and harsh cleaners
• Sealing grout can help protect the color as well as provide protection from mold and mildew
• Epoxy grout keeps stains from penetrating the grout, more so than a sealer and does not need to be reapplied. It’s great for countertops.
• Faded or discolored grout is not ruined. It can be re-stained.
• Different grouts are needed for different jobs. Unsanded grout is used for smaller grout joints such as natural stone joints. Sanded grout is used for normal and larger grout joints. Mexican tile or Saltillo has special grout for it’s larger than normal grout joints. Your flooring professional will guide you on what to use. For DIY projects, check the back of the bag for more specific instructions.
• Areas where a tiled surface meets a perpendicular surface should be caulked and not grouted. This may require you (not the tile setter) to recaulk annually in areas like the where the wall tile meets the bath tub or where the countertop meets the backsplash.
• It is always a good idea to keep grout from the original installation in case of repair. Grout from a later batch might not match exactly. If a repair happens and your new grout doesn’t match, remember you always have the option of staining the whole floor to a uniform color.

Well first of all I would like to say thanks to Shannon Bilby for not only writing such a wonderful and informative blog, but also for letting me write a guest post about something I am passionate about, recycled rubber flooring. Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Mark Rollings and I am a co-owner of Rubber Flooring, Inc.. We specialize in marketing and selling commercial weight room flooring and home gym flooring on line. Well enough about me. Let’s talk flooring.Perhaps the latest and hottest craze in the building industry is “green building” and getting LEED points. I have even heard of a new phenomenon called “green investing” where investors are considering investing a portion of their portfolios in companies which focus on creating and marketing “green products.” Why has this become such a hot topic? I personally believe it is because the general public is slowly becoming more and more socially conscious about how our actions and practices affect the environment. Plus, we feel that if we can even do something small like buying recycled goods, we are doing our part to protect the environment for ourselves and for our kids.

This leads me to rubber flooring. There are many types of rubber flooring products on the market. Some of it is made of virgin rubber that is either harvested from rubber trees or made synthetically. Other types of rubber flooring are in fact made predominately from recycled automobile tires with an added mix of virgin rubber to add color to the product. This is the kind of rubber flooring that we sell and market at www.rubberflooringinc.com . Not only do we feel that we are doing our part environmentally, we also feel that we are creating a great product for our market and offering it at a great price compared to 100% virgin rubber flooring products.

Some examples of recycled rubber flooring can be seen below:

Just to show how our growing market is contributing to the green building craze, let me explain the history behind our market. Twenty years ago, most used tires sat in landfills like this one:Obviously this was not the best situation since tires have a degradation period estimated to be in the thousands of years and could lead to environmentally devastating landfill fires. I have heard many estimates about the amount of tires once stored in landfills but the general consensus was that there were around one billion tires in landfills at one point in time. Today there are around 250 million. That’s Progress!

Now those tires were not all used for flooring but were also used to make rubberized asphalt concrete for roads, anti slip mats for the shipping industry, synthetic turf infill, and even as a fuel derivative by pulp and paper mills. Nonetheless, recycled rubber flooring is an excellent outlet for those used tires and can help lead not only to LEED points, but also to saving the environment one tire at a time.

TRENDS IN CARPET AND AREA RUGS

With hardwood and tile being selected in more living areas and hallways, this is allowing bedrooms and rooms off the hallway to have their own identities and themes. Carpet in the hallway can dictate that the surrounding rooms be the same material because when the doors are all open it doesn’t look so great for the hallway carpet to be seamed to several different colors or pattens of carpet. Hardwood or tile serves as a neutral divider. Because of this, rooms can have patterned carpets that compliment the theme of the room, bedding or drapery or wallpaper.

Natural fiber carpets and rugs have enough texture on their own, but the addition of raised patterns on top of that texture made me want to break out my checkbook and order some!

Carpet companies like Glen Eden are taking advantage of the metallic finishes that are so popular by incorporating them into their patterned carpets. (left)

Because of the continued use and success of hard surfaces in main living areas as well as bedrooms, area rugs are in high demand. Like other colorful accents, rugs are being shown with lots of color, bright and bold colors as well as great patterns that can let the rugs be a focal point of the room.

Trends in residential products include warm neutrals, large and small patterns and soft luxurious yarns. With rooms having their own themes and identities, it’s easier to use multiple patterns and colors. Patterned carpets are becoming focal points and foundations for rooms that are dictating other design choices in the room. (these pictures are courtesy of Flooring the Consumer author C.B. Whittemore who is the Director, In-Store Innovation for Solutia’s Wear-Dated carpet fiber) For more information about carpet trends, see Christine Whittemore’s post on The Carpetology Blog called The Latest in Carpet Style Trends .

(Craftwork) (Shining Allure)