Bedroom Talk

Any ideas for unconventional flooring in a master bedroom?

I'm taking out standard carpet and pad, down to particle board. I don't want to have carpet again. I want to do the new flooring myself. My bedroom has sort of an "old-world"/asian style to it. (darkish wood, natural light fibers for bed, neutral colors).

Public Comments

1. bamboo.
2. I don't know how it would work for you......but............ Once at a customer's house, they had sand on the floor, with some heavy clear plastic sheeting on top of the sand. (but, then again, it was a beach theme throughout their house)
3. Bamboo is right. They make a bamboo looking tongue and groove product that would look good, but without the dirt accumulation you would get with a real bamboo treatment. I would opt for some of the newer tiles, look like real tiles, come 12"X36" and fit together very well. If you go to a home improvement store and find them, note the manufacturer and also ask at the store if they can special order the unique design you are looking for. Has to be laid with adhesive but I have had really good luck with it, cannot even see the seams where they abut. This was by far an easier install than ceramic, which I have used in a number of places. More durable, does not crack when something really heavy drops on it, and does not seem to want to shift, due to its larger footprint than 12x12 tiles. Warmer, too. Not costly.
4. Grasscloth rugs could be nailed or glued to the subfloor.
5. Put down hard wood flooring.particle board gun and lay it down then wax it and late it go
6. Paint the particle board a color you like. On a piece of graph paper scaled to the dimensions of your room, design a pattern that would go with your room's theme, and color it with colored pencils in the colors your room contains. Buy a heavy canvas drop cloth, used by painters. Use a yardstick or chalkliner to map out the pattern and make stencils for your design. Use acrylic paint to fill in the pattern shapes, and then seal it with a clear acrylic or liquid fabric protector. Do not use polyurethane, as the canvas will crack when bent, and it would be too slippery. When all is dry, put it on the floor like you would an area rug. You now have your own originally designed floor cloth, like Americans and Europeans hundred years ago made for their homes. It will be easy to keep clean, just mop with warm water and gentle soap as needed.
7. Certainly Bamboo is not only an extremely durable floor material, but one of the few that's pretty much recycle able. Not strictly unconventional however. In some measure, this also depends on some comfort level you want to achieve. You could use a matte finish, stone look tile. You could use Cork, and pour a Poly clear coat over. You could use, (AND I LOVE the idea) sand, or Pea gravel, and pour clear coat over the gravel. Probably many ideas can be applied, but you will have a couple of issues. You may have to install Concrete backer board as an additional substrate. Certainly with hardwoods, you may consider an underlayment. for adding any height, beyond what the carpet was, you should consider removing any cove base to replace after the fact. You should also consider transition areas from the bedroom entry, and or closets. One of the things this may also allow is to modify, in some way, the general look of the room above the floor, such as an even more expressive Asian theme, or different lighting and accessories. By the way thank you for using Asian as opposed to Oriental. Steven Wolf Just my two "sense"
8. Not Bamboo!!!! I just put in bamboo through out my house and my dog made quick work of filling it with scratches. It is definitley not harder than oak. It looks(ed) great, and it might be wise to pay the premium price (I bought mine at costco), nevertheless, there's nothing "green" about this product if I have to replace it every few years.
9. No promises that it would hold up, but a vinyl grass cloth looking wall paper might do, athough you might have to cover heavy traffic areas with rugs or something stronger.