If you’ve ever had or know someone who has had hardwood floors in their home, you know that while they’re beautiful, it takes a lot of work to maintain them. A person has to be infinitely careful not to scratch or gouge the floors with the furniture. Many precautions must be taken to ensure that the wood remains conditioned or it could dry out and crack. Also, depending on how it’s treated, certain shoes can do real damage to the appearance of hardwood floors. Once they’ve been installed, people who own hardwood floors are unlikely to make a change because the floor costs so much. Many people have been looking for an alternative to hardwood flooring that is more durable and requires less daily care, but still has the beautiful look that hardwood flooring does. An affordable and durable alternative on the market is cork laminate flooring. The cork comes from the cork oak tree found in Portugal and is a durable alternative to hardwood. It requires little care and cannot be easily damaged by wear and tear. Realistically, shouldn’t those be the regular requirements for flooring?
Cork laminate floors look just as elegant as wooden floors, but they have many more advantages. For example, because cork expands and contracts under pressure, it is a natural sound absorber. So if you have a family or a pet, the noise they make running across the floor will be greatly reduced and who knows, you might even be able to take a mid-afternoon nap. To clean, simply use a vacuum cleaner and water with a very small amount of detergent. Cork is also a natural stain resistant and is very easy to clean after a muddy afternoon. You no longer have to worry about the kind of shows your guests are using in your house because cork floors are not susceptible to the kind of scratches that hardwood floors are susceptible to.
In addition to being durable for high-traffic areas, cork laminate flooring can be found in many different colors and shades. You can create original designs using the different shades of cork to add accents to your floor. Cork is much easier to cut and therefore will give you more opportunities to add design when installing the floor. Plus, floors are beautiful whether you want them for your kitchen, living room, or bedroom. It really is a universally beautiful floor.
The price of cork floors is about half of what you would pay for wooden floors. That fact, plus the amount of time you have to spend caring for your hardwood floors, makes cork flooring the best natural choice for any homeowner looking for new flooring.
