Green Shoots Blog
Marcie H. of San Diego transformed her bathrooms with Midnight Cork Flooring.
Hi my name is Marcie, welcome to my home in San Diego, California. Recently we replaced the linoleum in our bathrooms with GreenClaimed® Cork Flooring and it looks amazing. So we decided to install the flooring ourselves which made me a little nervous because my husband has never actually installed flooring before but he was able to get it done in one weekend and turned our really well and in fact, the hardest part was pulling up the old vinyl. We were concerned about putting hardwoods in the bathroom because of moisture and we have a 6-year-old son that likes to splash around in the bathtub so we went with a cork which is naturally water resistant. We chose the Midnight color which is dark and modern looking and goes really well with the Antique Java Bamboo Flooring. We are so happy with the way the flooring turned out, the cork is really comfortable to walk on, it looks fantastic and it’s just amazing what a difference installing new flooring in a room can make.
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We are looking into putting new flooring in our house, including bathrooms. We live where there are 4 seasons so some very cold weather. Is cork flooring warmer to walk on verses tile and hardwood?
Hi Glenn,
I have cork in my bathrooms and bamboo in the rest of my home and the cork definitely feels warmer. Not sure if it is actually warmer or just feels warmer. I can shoot it with a digital thermometer tonight because you’ve got my curiosity peaked.
Cheers,
I am thinking of putting sandalwood cork flooring in my house that covers about 950 sft. I want to know how durable is the texture and color of this plank. How sensitive it is to the exposure to direct sunlight? How much does the cork floor expand/contract with variation in temperature and humidity? Is the cork floor more stable than solid wood floor?
Hi Chetan,
The cork is actually surprisingly durable, I have it in my bathrooms since it is more moisture resistant than hardwood. Mine hasn’t expanded or contracted at all, keep in mind my bathrooms are very small. Since the sandalwood is a very light color, I would expect it to fade very little, especially since it does also have UV inhibitors in the finish. Did you get a sample yet? You can do some real world testing on the samples. Cover half the sample and put it out in full sun for a week or two and see what happens, thay kind of stuff.
Best,
We would love to put Rustic Barnwood Fossilized Wide T&G Bamboo flooring in our bathroom. It has a beautiful look and feel. The floor would cover approximately 48 square feet. The Lowe’s flooring person said this particular product needs to be in a temperature controlled environment. However, our house is old and we live in the North East. The bathroom is heated by a radiator and has no air conditioning. Therefore the temps in the room can, at their extremes, range from 55 to 105 degrees. But usually, it is quite temperate. Will this product work in this environment? Or should we look into other products? Any information and advice would be much appreciated!
Hi Ellen,
While it doesn’t sound like an ideal environment for hardwood flooring, I know what you mean about the Barnwood, it’s stunning. Normally I might steer you towards our vinyl flooring or an engineered product but since we don’t have anything that looks nearly as good and we’re only talking about 48 sqft, I’m gonna say just go for it. Should you have any problems, customer service will work with you, and you can blame me if need be. Go for it Ellen!
I need to see color choices I have 2 campers and a house that I like to put your product in. Along with prices
Hi Ed,
Those sound like fun projects! A green building specialist will be contacting you shortly.
In the meantime, here’s a blog post with lots of camper, trailer and tiny home inspiration.
Do you install the cork under the toilet or should you trim around the toilet?
Good question Ron,
You’re going to want to cut the planks to fit around the toilet. I drew the basic shape on a large paper template, cut it out with scissors a bit smaller than needed then I kept trimming away till it fit just right. Once I had my template, I used it to trace the shapes I needed to cut on my planks. A jig saw works well for shaped cuts, I also used a coping saw and a file to make fine adjustments. To finish it off, you’ll lay down a bead of silicone calking around the toilet. Luckily the cork is very easy to work with, much more so than hardwood or bamboo.
I am very confused. I desperately want to do our master bath floor with cork (first preference) or bamboo (second preference). However, I keep reading very conflicting information. One Cali Bamboo distributor web site specifically says to not use it in bathrooms. Other articles say use the bamboo, but not cork. I have visited had a dozen stores here in metro-DC that sell tile, bamboo and cork, which almost universally recommend against both. However, i have read a few different reviews in places that say CaliBamboo works well in bathrooms.
Does CaliBamboo have an official, corporate position/recommendation?
Hi Joe,
Cork is a great floor for bathrooms, I have it in all 3 of my bathrooms and it handles humidity and drips and splashes fine. Where you run into problems is if you have puddles of water that sit on the floor for more than an hour. Water (puddles not drips) left on the floor for extended periods of time can seep into the crack of the planks and bloat the seam. I had a plastic bin in the bathroom next to the tub that I had thrown wet toys into and I didn’t realize the bin had a crack in the bottom and a day or two later I lifted it up and discovered a puddle of water under it. I immediately wiped it up and put a fan on it and after a day the raised seam returned to almost normal. Now if I look at it at the right angle with the light I can still see a slight abnormality but for the most part it’s fine, and I wouldn’t spend the time to try and replace the planks, it’s just not noticeable enough. My other two bathrooms still look awesome with daily drips from getting out of the shower, normal use, etc. I doubt hardwood flooring would have been as forgiving, I probably would have had to replace it if it were wood. All and all I would totally recommend cork in bathrooms just don’t let the water sit on it for too long.