The truck drives toward your house and backs into the driveway. Beep…beep… beep! Gears grind and metal screeches against metal. The big slide falls out of the back and tons of wet, messy gray liquid slide toward your house. While you’re not looking, it oozes in through the garage, leaks into the living room and finally seeps around to the backdoor you left open. NOW WHAT? Is there any way to welcome this mess into your home? There is now, especially if you can imagine the joy of “walking on art.”

Concrete isn’t just for garage and basement floors. With the help of a specialty contractor, the cold, hard floor beneath your feet can be transformed into something fun, stylish, warm and stunning. (more…)

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Photo credit: Orin Optiglot

Sunken and uneven floors can mean big problems and big bucks to fix. To troubleshoot shoddy flooring in the home, look to the subfloor for answers. This is a likely source for those pesky and annoying problems. Wooden subfloors are built in three ways: Tongue and grove panels, plank subflooring, and OSB (Oriented Strand Board) glued and nailed to joists. With the correct design and proper installation, these modern designs are durable and trouble free. But if poorly installed, a faulty subfloor makes it impossible to maintain quality floors. Here are some common subfloor problems and solutions to help restore the floor.

Sinking Floor

This could mean that the subflooring was not installed correctly. If the floor feels soft or spongy, then the subfloor is not as strong as it used to be. Water or moisture may have started rotting the joist, causing certain areas of the floor to sag. You’ll have to take a look at it, either from the basement or by removing the flooring. The subfloor can be temporarily propped up with a floor jack and then pressure treated beams can be put in place to stabilize the floor.

Creaking or Popping

This is a familiar sound in many older homes. It’s usually far too easy to just overlook, but that wouldn’t be wise. A creaking noise can mean that the subfloor is not secured to the underlying joists. It could also indicate the wrong thickness of plywood or OSB was used. The recommended width is ¾ inch. In any event, you’ll have to remove the old plywood and replace it with thicker panels. If that’s not possible, install wider joist. This tactic serves the same purpose and should stop the noise. (more…)

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In a recent laminate flooring poll, voters were asked their opinions of laminate floors as viable option. Overall, the web survey proved to be a mixed bag. Some love the laminates, while others despise them for being cheap. If you’re thinking about using this product, let’s go through the results from Floor Talk’s MicroPoll. I don’t want to bore you with the numbers but here goes. 42% think laminate flooring is a great product that will give you the look of hardwood for less money and is more practical for your family and traffic patterns.

The next highest percentage of voters took a completely opposite reaction. 36% of them believe laminate floors are cheap. On the flip side, some would argue that laminate flooring has made great strides over the years with new technologies. I tend to agree but at the same time it’s very hard to beat the warmth of real hardwood floors.

The remaining 22% say it is loud and clicky or they think it scratches easily and will not hold up to your family and traffic patterns. What’s most important about this survey? We’ll, it shows that consumers are torn between traditional products and cheaper alternatives. (more…)

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