Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Kids room flooring....

[Andrew Netherton (andrewnetherton]

Back 30+ years ago when I was born a friend of my mother's made me a
throw rug out or scraps of fabric.  It's called a braided rug - it
looks like a huge flat coil of braided fabric.  (See
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=braided%20rug for many, many
examples.)

In any case, this rug has lasted.  It needs a good cleaning right now,
but is in as good a shape now as I've ever known it to be.  It's 100%
post-consumer content, recyclable (where you have textile recycling,
anyways), resilient (good protection for little noggins from hard
floors), and quite colourful.  No offgassing (assuming you use natural
fibre fabrics), just the need to be rolled up and taken to a
commercial laundromat once in a while.  Flop it down on top of
whatever flooring you've got and have at it!

Once our cohousing development moves in (many years hence,
unfortunately) this is the kind of roll-on-the-floor surface I'll be
suggesting to our group.  Hey, maybe if I start now, I can have a few
rugs done by the time we move in... :)

Andrew Netherton
Laurel Creek Commons (forming)
Waterloo, ON, Canada

On 11/29/06, Racheli Gai <racheli [at] sonoracohousing.com> wrote:
> Most (and maybe ALL) cheap/"affordable" wall to wall carpets are
> exceedingly toxic, as far as I know.  And they off-gas  for *years*.
> Since kids are closer to the ground, they inhale more of the crud,
> and since their bodies aren't fully grown, they are more at risk than
> most adults.
>
> additionally, all wall to wall carpets are close to impossible to clean
> thoroughly.
> If people feel that they have to have a carpet - go for an area carpet,
> preferably wool.  Wool carpets can be taken out and hosed clean (a
> method which doesn't work too well with many cotton rugs).
>
> Did any community try linoleum floors? -- They are supposed to
> last for a long time, and aren't as hard as some other floors.
> I think that if one gets the tile variety, they aren't too hard to
> install,
> and they are good, environmentally speaking.
>
> Racheli
> Sonora cohousing, Tucson.
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 29, 2006, at 11:37 AM, Carol Singleton wrote:
>
> > We have laminate-type flooring (I don't actually know what it is) over
> > entire room.  We had a full length area rug custom made for a little
> > less
> > than half of the room.  It works well.  The rug area is used for
> > reading,
> > non-messy floor play, etc.  The laminate floor part is used for
> > activities
> > that are messy (painting, etc.) and other non-cozy fun stuff.  It
> > works well
> > this way.
> >
> > Carol Singleton
> > Oak Creek Commons
> > Paso Robles, CA
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Lyle Scheer" <wonko [at] monkeyhouse.org>
> > To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 10:47 PM
> > Subject: [C-L]_ Kids room flooring....
> >
> >
> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >> Hash: RIPEMD160
> >>
> >> We're in the process of selecting flooring for our Kids room.  We're
> >> budget conscious but want something that will work well.  Currently it
> >> looks like we're leaning towards laminate flooring with an area rug or
> >> similar to cut noise.
> >>
> >> However, I noticed when going back over photos of the bay area
> >> cohousing
> >> tour we took last October that most of the places we saw had carpet,
> >> so
> >> I've been making the argument that carpet will likely be easiest on
> >> our
> >> budget and will work better at noise reduction, which I am theorizing
> >> should be the largest factor flooring choice for the kids room.  The
> >> problem is I'm just guessing.
> >>
> >> What does your cohousing group have?  Would you use something else?
> >> What do you like or not like about it?  If money were no object, what
> >> flooring would you use and why?  When it was worked into your reserve
> >> study, what life expectancy did you use for your particular flooring
> >> estimating kids room wear and tear?
> >>
> >> I guess the same question could be asked of the Kitchen.  It looks
> >> like
> >> we're headed towards sheet vinyl.  We almost went for commercial grade
> >> vinyl tile, but our builder had bad things to say about it.
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >> - - Lyle
> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >> Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (Darwin)
> >>
> >> iD8DBQFFbSzw00lQLawESXoRAwcoAJ4rYhSgOt1KwyfeMKmDJwuomE4/hwCbBTCj
> >> N19xXJGIepRU67IB3BMkSDc=
> >> =IeKD
> >> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >> _________________________________________________________________
> >> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> >> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> > http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> >
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/