Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Concrete Floor Tile Yay or Nay?

I like the industrial look of concrete floors. They won’t chip. You can clean them with a garden hose if you’re into extreme floor cleaning or have a dog who likes to bring the outside in after.every.walk.

Kitchen Design Plan #483 Don't Tell the Husband Edition has me ripping the vinyl floor covering out of the kitchen and exposing the concrete slab underneath.  I’m not sure how that’s going to work. I wonder if the floor would be colder in winter without some sort of floor covering besides area rugs.

Kitchen Design Plan #484 Husband Will Balk at the Price Edition has radiant floor heat over the slab and covered in concrete tile.


Kitchen Design Plan #485 I Must Be Dreaming Edition has my house magically turning in a stylish space – poof! – without any work from contractors or me and has it looking like this swanky photo and appearing on the front page of Elle Decor.

 Photo courtesy of Ann Sacks


The concrete floor tiles contain 20% post-consumer recycled fly ash and silica fume, which makes my green side happy. The tiles are supposed patina over time, which makes my Mid-Century Modern-Bauhaus-Contemporary-Found-and-Funkified-Retro-DaDa-Danish decorating style happy too.

What do you think? Concrete floor tiles – yay or nay?


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9 comments:

Lisa said...

One guess for what I will say. haha That would be a big nay. While cement has to be used still for somethings as there aren't other good options, there are for flooring and until the industry cleans up their act I don't want them to have any reason to build new toxic plants.

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

Lisa - I wouldn't expect any less from you my friend :)

Robj98168 said...

I say Yay. My living room floor is concrete, allthough there is a linoleum fake wood floor on top- still I wouldn't let that stop me from ripping up linoleum and staing the concrete. I say go for it!

Lisa said...

When I saw this post I had to laugh and thought, I bet she already knows what I'm going to post. :)

scarlettred41816@aol.com said...

I love concrete floors. You can paint and repaint them when you get tired of looking at them or when you just get bored. But tiles? Not sure?

Laina27 said...

Hi Lisa, I have the same condo as you do, and all I can say is that you'd really want to heat the floor in our Ohio winters. They already are cold enough with vinyl and carpet. I've seen a flyash over heated pipes set up on "this old house" that should work for you if you tile over it. You might look into that and good luck. I'll be watching for more ideas for my place :)

Darci said...

YAY for concrete, but NAY for tiles. Grouting them and then keeping the grout lines clean is a PITA. What about just straight concrete? You could apply it with a trowel very thinly.

Since you're in a condo, would this be a potential HOA violation? A lot of condos require a certain percentage of the floor to be covered for muffling sounds from neighbours. You'd be surprised by how much carpet baffles noise.

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

Darci - My condo is a free standing condo. It looks like a freestanding house but acts like a condo. Technically I don't own the land the house sits on = modern day serfdom :)

Noise shouldn't be an issue. The only thing below the kitchen is the foundation of the house.

Robj98168 said...

I was judt thinking- if you already have concrete floor in your kitchen, you wouldn't need to pour new concrete, so yes, that point is mute! The eco friendly thing to do is NOT to cover it with some enviormentally unfriendly material.

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