Looking for green/grassroots kitchen floor

I've never seen anyone use ordinary Georgia Pacific plywood, but it hardly gets cheaper than that.

chaparral wrote: I've never seen anyone use ordinary Georgia Pacific plywood, but it hardly gets cheaper than that.

I am assuming you mean pine or fir plywood off the shelf at Lowes.

Formaldehyde, no water resistance, too soft a surface for a floor, voids under the first lamination which make it susceptible to puncture and damage from high heels or chair legs, and a good way to devalue your house at resale.

Also you might check the building materials section of Craigslist. Lots of people seem to sell old hardwood flooring for cheap. Sometimes you even have to pull it yourself. I don't know how bad an idea hardwood is for a kitchen but maybe you can find other materials in the same manner.

How big is your kitchen?

Taiden wrote: Also you might check the building materials section of Craigslist. Lots of people seem to sell old hardwood flooring for cheap. Sometimes you even have to pull it yourself. I don't know how bad an idea hardwood is for a kitchen but maybe you can find other materials in the same manner.

Reclaimed hardwoods do give amazing character for pennies on the dollar. Check with demolition companies, Habitat for Humanity REstores, etc

Marmoleum is awesome stuff. We have installed it in two different children's museums. It takes the abuse heaped upon it in those environments and looks fantastic.

It's not cheap but it's damn good. On one surface, we inlaid a "welcome mat" into it using our CNC router. It dulled the crap out of solid carbide router bits that normally stay sharp for hundreds of hours.

SVreX wrote: Go to a Habitat for Humanity Re-store. You will have a wide selection of flooring available at very favorable prices. Some of it will not be "green" in how it was manufactured/ harvested, but it is green to the extent that it is already manufactured, and therefore will not consume additional resources, it is left over or seconds that would otherwise end up in the landfill, it is discontinued product so it can't be sold commercially, and the proceeds are utilized in a non-profit format to help people who need housing in many parts of the world. Lots of "win".

Win+1 We're building a new house and this is what I'm doing. The Re-Store here has a lot of "reclaimed" wood flooring from deconstructed houses. A little imagination and you create a truly beautiful unique floor for not much money.

SVreX wrote: How big is your kitchen?

11 x 13.

Ok... here's what we've decided for now.

If we do Marmoleum, we would have to lay a subfloor since the one there now is old and planked. I talked to our flooring guy for about an hour yesterday and got some ideas. We pulled up some of the linoleum to look at the existing subfloor. He agreed that it doesn't really need a full 1/4" upgrade, maybe just some floor leveling compound.

So... we came up with the idea of laying 3/16" Tempered board (masonite) as the overlay before Marmoleum. So I did some searching and found out that its not the greatest for "green" building either, mostly because of the Formaldehyde.

Then, I took a little trip to the lumber section of my local lumber warehouse and (lo and behold) they have formaldehyde-free masonite.

So, like it or not, here is what we've decided to do for now. Lay 3/16" Masonite in 2x4' "tiles" and seal it with a few coats of polyurethane. Not the greenest idea, but since the overlay would have to happen anyway, we're just going to seal it as best we can until we can afford to put Marmoleum on top of it.

BUT... I'm also very interested in the Habitat for Humanity re-store. The nearest one I know of is 600 miles away in Canada, but I'll do a search for one closer... especially because I have some reclaimed stuff that I can donate to them.

curtis, there are 3 within 25 minutes of my house here by cleveland - come out early one saturday and we'll hit all 3.

i just bought 160 sq ft of solid 5/8" nail down bamboo for my sunroom at lowe's for 1.98/sf. the rest of the house is oak but the kitchen in between the rest of the house and the sunroom is linoleum, and probably will be tile when i remodel it in a couple years.

also just bought 150 sq ft of glass subway tiles for my bathroom walls on clearance for .99/sf - so awesome.

Before you assume Masonite will work as a subfloor, check Marmoleum's installation guidelines.

Almost every vinyl flooring manufacturer I am aware of voids their warranty if the subfloor is not as specified, and Masonite is not generally approved. I am not familiar with Marmoleum's guidelines.

Don't get me wrong, I have used many things that are not technically approved for subfloor without trouble. One of my favorites i 1/4" Luan.

But I did have one job using a Tarkett flooring product which telegraphed glue patterns through the finished floor. Obviously, this had nothing to do with the subfloor. Didn't matter. Tarkett dodged the warranty and I ate a $1700 floor.

Just thought you should know.

curtis73 wrote:

SVreX wrote: How big is your kitchen?

11 x 13.

So you are buying something like 120 SF of flooring. The difference between $1 flooring and $5 flooring is $480.

That's pretty insignificant for the largest single surface in the most expensive room in the house.

I'd really suggest you buy the Marmoleum.

I put in a bamboo floor in a bedroom. I just bought the stuff at Lowes. I am happy with it. The adjoining hallway has oak flooring. I like the contrast.

How about Terazzo for your kitchen? That should be green. Not sure of the cost or the weight.

We used slate in our kitchen and front entrance. It's usually around $2 a square foot and is available in a wide range of colours. The texture turns some people off but we like the natural look. You do have to seal it but it's very simple, not much different than washing the floor really. It comes in 12" tiles and you install it just like ceramic tile.

In reply to curtis73:

Too bad you may not have a "reuse" store- not only do we have a Habitat store- which seems to be more new stuff that was too much, we also have a recycle store- so if someone pulls up a hardwood floor- they have old stuff like that. Actually- of the wood they have, most of it's flooring.

I spent $5 on electrical stuff for a small remodel I'm doing- pretty cool.

And an interesting solution. I was also going to suggest reclaimed wood cut for flooring- we've had pine in our kitchen for 16 years now, and it's in great shape. Well, noting that the stains we had came with house.

Reclaimed wood is extremely beautiful and environmentally friendly. It is NOT cheap, if you are buying it. I am familiar with costs starting around $7 per foot and going up to over $15.

Now, if you've got a surface planer and a source for the reclaimed wood (like I do), then it only costs your labor.

Wayslow wrote: We used slate in our kitchen and front entrance. It's usually around $2 a square foot and is available in a wide range of colours. The texture turns some people off but we like the natural look. You do have to seal it but it's very simple, not much different than washing the floor really. It comes in 12" tiles and you install it just like ceramic tile.

I love slate. I'm avoiding "hard" floors is for two reasons. One, a tile or slate floor is mighty cold in the winter, and Two, everything that gets dropped on it turns into a million pieces of shattered whatever. I definitely want the kitchen floor to look good, but when I'm making Thanksgiving dinner for 13 family members I want it to also be functional and forgiving.

Hey... I do have a re-store. I was just searching for the wrong thing. There are five in the greater Pittsburgh area.

Yehaw...

Good.

You had be worried. 22 years experience with HfH made me pretty confident you were mistaken, but I wasn't certain in your specific area.

If you are not on a crawl or a slab, the tile will not be that cold.

started laying my bamboo today - it's awesome.

curtis73 wrote: BUT... I'm also very interested in the Habitat for Humanity re-store. The nearest one I know of is 600 miles away in Canada, but I'll do a search for one closer... especially because I have some reclaimed stuff that I can donate to them.

http://www.habitat.org/cd/local/affiliate.aspx?zip=15135

There is also a place called Construction Junction. Its down in East Liberty, just outside of Pittsburgh. They have mostly used stuff, but sometimes leftover lots of new stuff comes in.

http://www.constructionjunction.org/

Good Luck Paul

I really like bamboo but it just won't work with the existing woodwork in my newsed place. None of the colors available are even close to being compatible. Looks like 2 1/4 gunstock oak will be it.

SVreX wrote:

curtis73 wrote:

SVreX wrote: How big is your kitchen?

11 x 13.

So you are buying something like 120 SF of flooring. The difference between $1 flooring and $5 flooring is $480. That's pretty insignificant for the largest single surface in the most expensive room in the house. I'd really suggest you buy the Marmoleum.

But you don't know my budget... if you're willing to chip in $500 for my kitchen floor project I'd be open to that

We're saving pennies at every turn on this project; partly because we don't have much money and partly because I am really itching to do everything I can myself to learn and become more proficient.

I did find a guy on CL today selling a bunch of Slate from a project that he never did. $1.50/sq instead of 7.50 at Home Depot. Not bad. My main concern is that we don't like the look of grouted tile. Can I install it without grout space to minimize that appearance?

No.

Slate varies too much in size. You will never get it to work if you try to eliminate the joint.

You can use a grout that matches the slate color.