It came FedEx freight and the pallet weighed in at 1200 pounds so I was very grateful that the delivery guy was nice enough to help me get it up the driveway and store it in the garage with his pallet jack. That said, it took all of his pulling and my pushing to make the slope! Now the pile safely ensconced in the center of the garage and I will work on moving it down to the back corner of the basement for temporary storage at my leisure.
Check out the look
I couldn’t resist breaking out one of the packs right away and testing it out. Assembling a segment of click lock engineered flooring couldn’t be easier. I made myself a little 4’ x 4’ area panel to carry around the house, standing on it at the kitchen sink, comparing it with the existing bedroom hardwood and letting Roxie give it her sniff seal of approval. I am so tickled with the look. It’s better than I anticipated from the sample – which is an ideal scenario for something I plan to have all over the house.
What’s on the floor now
Right now there is hardwood floor – exposed in the bedrooms and under carpet in the living room – and I plan to preserve and restore it. The bathroom, kitchen and front hall have a stick down linoleum, probably vinyl. That’s slated for replacement. I also need an entirely new flooring in two key areas – the new mud room and the new finished basement areas. To keep it simple I limited myself just one flooring material that could work in all those areas.
Why cork?
I was looking flooring product that would be comfortable, clean-able and sustainably sourced. I selected a resilient material – ie gives a little when you step on it – that was easy to install. That led me to a click-lock cork flooring product.
Cork is both a new and an old material. Popular for flooring because it is resilient, often sustainably sourced, renewable and naturally anti-microbial.
I’ve chosen an engineered cork floating floor system from Green Building Supply – a midwestern local (Fairfield IA). The Natural Floors system is GreenGuard Gold Certified and warrantied for a lifetime of finish wear in residential applications (5 year commercial).
I’m not really ready for cork to be installed … yet
This delivery is a touch premature for the basement proper. The drywall hasn’t gone in yet, and we will probably choose to paint with just the sub-floor in place to save on paint drip or spill worries.  I’m planing to use the same product in the upstairs bathroom, front hall and future kitchen and mud room renovations so I saved on the freight fee and had it all delivered at once.
I DID PASS MY ROUGH FRAMING AND ELECTRICAL INSPECTIONS YESTERDAY so progress is being made toward basement flooring. Meanwhile, even before putting in the basement drywall, I want to lock in a few quick changes in the upstairs bathroom – switching out the old, finicky toilet for a new low-flow model and updating the flooring at the same time. I’d be so sad if a leak or spill upstairs damaged the brand new drywall below.
Next step, ordering the new toilet, pulling up the existing stick down vinyl flooring and getting the bathroom makeover underway!