[GardenOfDarwin]

Just today there have been several people asking about cork in a couple of different threads. I thought it might be good to gather the information in one handy post so that everyone who has it and everyone who's considering it can benefit.

Lazy me is going to cut and paste my comments from one of the other threads ( http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/forum13/3188.html ) -- hopefully others will chime in.

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Cork is wonderful! I really can't say enough about it. We've had it in for over a year and a half and I can't say a bad thing about it except that it hasn't gotten around to installing the quarter round after all this time.

We bought Natural Cork which is available in glue down or floating planks. Ours is of the floating variety and was super easy to install, once we got the hang of banging the tongue into the groove. Here's their website: http://www.naturalcork.com -- it's a little hard to navigate, but this is the direct link for what we have: http://www.naturalcork.com/floating_styles.html . To my chagrin, I found out after we paid for ours that you can find essentially the same thing online for 1/2 the price we paid (I think it was $6-$7 a square foot). That kills me.

Anyway, I'll see if I can dig up some other pictures. I know there are a few on these links:

http://www.ikeafans.com/our_breakfast_room.htm -- distance shots, hard to see
http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=25&forum_id=1 -- closeups

Ok, that's it for me, for now. Anyone else?

Susan

[shorty]

Susan asked me to post my experience, copied from another thread

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We love the floors, they are by Wicanders. We got the commercial grade (I believe it is the 1000 series), see attached link. Ours is the Harmony, which is like a brick pattern. We wanted something a bit different than the hardwood we had everywhere else. It's almost thesame tone, so it blends nicely without being identical.

http://www.wicanders.com/flooring_su...context=6,11,0

It was REALLY easy to get in, just like laminate. It comes in 1 foot by 3 foot planks, glueless that click together. We only had one fussy door opening, but that was geometry more than a flooring problem. In the end, we got them all in. We were able to cut it easily with a jigsaw.

So far it has held up spectacularly - in since April. It's just 2 of us though, but we bought commercial grade in anticipation of future kiddies. It was a PVC wear layer on top. We did drop something early on that made a divot, but 3 months later the mark has healed itself

We actually had a water leak in our upstairs bath last week, which dripped a bit through the kitchen ceiling onto the cork floor. I was in a panic because I know what water can do to click flooring. ButI mopped it up, put a fan on it, and NO warping at all. It was a high density core which is supposed to be a bit more resistant to water.

I priced it out locally, then found an online retailer. Asked my local place to match the price. They couldn't come all the way down to the internet price, but got pretty close to it, so we ordered through them to ensure quality.

Best part about the floors are that they hide dirt like you wouldn't believe! I joke that I could drop a potato on that floor and never notice.

Here's a picture during installation.



And a fully installed shot:

[kelly]

Shorty- your cork looks really nice!

We are thinking of bumping up our kitchen ceiling (ranchhouse) and putting in skylights- and I want stone floors. I can hear the future echoing all the way back here in the present! I would consider cork floors, but need to keep flooring variations to a min as I already have stone, wood and carpet.

I have seen what I think is essentially wood flooring on the ceilings of treatments like this- and was wondering what the ikeafans thought of putting the cork on the ceiling? Not only would it look warm, but it would really put a damper on all that clanking I do in the kitchen...

Thoughts??

[GardenOfDarwin]

Kelly, I'm running out the door at the moment, (going to pick up our first reupholstered chair!! Excited!) but take a look at www.naturalcork.com . They have cork specifically for wall applications.

Susan

[shorty]

Like Susan suggests, it would need to be some sort of tile that can be attached with adhesive, because a glueless, nail-less click flooring would come crashing down on your head .Not sure if this wall tile is thinner than floor tiles, but several compaies make glue-down tiles that you could look into.

My favorite feature of the cork is it's warmth (warmer than my wood floors, actually) followed closely by the sound dampening. We don't have alot of area rugs in our house, so we tend to have some echo where there is wood, but none in the kitchen with the cork.