Reclaimed. Re-purposed. Recycled. Whatever you name it, aged wood is in high-demand. This is for a good reason — it’s an economical, sustainable and soulful alternative to fresh-sawn lumber. Reclaimed wood is wood that is extracted from useful substances or from discarded materials and are then restored to a usable condition. By rescuing wood from destruction and re-crafting it into one-of-a-kind antique flooring, we recycle premium species and decrease environmental damage. Look for these unique products and learn even more information by visiting one of our seven stores.
There are many debates about what is good for your health and happiness vs. what is good for the environment. Luckily when it comes to your home, hardwood flooring is good for both you and the environment. All types of hardwood flooring are more beneficial to your health than carpeting for a multitude of reasons.
Materials
Bamboo: Bamboo is a renewable resource that grows faster than any other hard, woody plant in the world. The average speed of growth is about an inch an hour, and some species grow at twice that speed. It is extremely easy to clean, and is a great material to use if you are concerned about protecting the environment.
Cork: Cork is a great alternative for anyone with feet, leg, back, or joint issues. The softer material is gentle on the body and is soft underfoot. Its anti-microbial nature keeps your family safe from the breeding grounds of bacteria. Since it is normally used from what would otherwise be waste from bottle stopper manufacturing, it is a recycled material. Even better, it originates from the bark of trees without harming them at all.
Health Benefits
All types of hardwood materials are better for your health than carpeting. Many people think that carpets create a cozier environment for their family, but they do not realize how cozy of an environment they are creating for allergens and dust mites, as well. Many rooms with wall-to-wall carpeting have a dangerously high number of dust mites thriving just below the surface that emit an unhealthy amount of allergens.
Carpets are also much dustier, and can trap bacteria in their hard-to-clean fibers. Hardwood flooring is very easy to clean, and with care, can last decades longer than any type of carpeting. You do not have to worry about food or beverage stains, or getting your floor professionally cleaned.
If you have infants or small children around the house, there is no way to know for sure that the germs and bacteria trapped in a carpet will not harm them. Hardwood floors are much safer and can be easily cleaned on a daily basis without harm. The more you vacuum or shampoo a carpet, the faster it deteriorates.
The chemicals used to manufacture carpets can be very toxic and the amount of plastic used is extremely harmful to the environment. Since hardwood floors are a natural product, the chemical emissions are very low, and since they last much longer than carpeting, the production energy in the long run is much lower.
If you consider the value of your home, carpets are often replaced by new owners, or require replacement before selling the home. Hardwood flooring is the only way to increase the value of your home, whether you hope to sell it or not. The cleanliness, combined with the renewable resources, and fewer chemicals required in manufacturing guarantee a healthier, happier home and environment for all of us for years to come.
Coles now carries Teragren flooring- a bamboo manufacturer known for its strict adherence to environmental standards & guidelines.
A powerful force in the development of eco-friendly building products, Teragren offers products with the highest quality of environmental & health standards, including LEED® certification, FloorScore® certification, and responsible harvesting & manufacturing processes.
We are proud to offer homeowners such an environmentally conscious, high-quality brand for their flooring needs. To learn more about bamboo flooring, click here.
Everyone’s joining the green movement, whether it’s purchasing a hybrid vehicle, reducing our water and energy use, or simply recycling, we should all be doing our part. When starting your next home design project, consider environmentally friendly alternatives to reduce your affect on the environment. Recycled materials typically cost less, and add the same charming decor to warm the spirits of your house.
Bamboo hard wood floors
When it comes to hardwood flooring, bamboo has become a popular option. A renewable resource that grows at exponential levels and has minimal affect on the environment. It’s a very popular hardwood flooring option because it can be stained or painted any color. You can make it look like traditional hardwood floors, or use the bamboo to highlight a unique appearance. Bamboo adds an innovative style to the possibilities of hardwood flooring.
Bamboo furniture or Wall Covers
Bamboo also makes for an affordable furniture material, perfect for kitchen tables, chairs, and bar stools. In addition, it can be used as a wall covering to compliment your furniture. Since it grows so prolifically, it’s cheap to use, and has the great qualities of hard wood. Bamboo is functionally strong, so you know your investment will be around for a long time to come.
Recycled Wall Paper
This is a hot trend in interior design, although you might want to avoid recycling the bright 70s yellow Brady Bunch wallpapers you remember from your childhood. Many companies take existing pieces of wallpaper and recycle them to make fresh new designs. Scraps of existing paper or broken paper are then added to make material that’s completely new. This saves wallpaper from ending up in a landfill and polluting the environment further.
Make Use of Distressed Wood
Distressed wood can come from broken furniture, torn down houses and even old sail boats. It’s much cheaper than new wood, but can still be reused to make quality products. The pieces are left as is, but can be sanded and stained to look new. It’s great for making wooden tables, pieces of decoration, or even a cheaper option for installing hardwood flooring.
Windshield Carpet Backing
Although you wouldn’t expect that you could make carpet from used windshields, they make excellent carpet backing. Tandus recently released Ethos, a modular carpet backing that uses waste from the manufacturers of windshields and safety glass to create a thermoplastic polymer. The non-chlorinated thermoplastic can be recycled repeatedly to divert it from landfills forever. How’s that for carpet excitement?
Redesign old drawers into furniture
Take a chest of drawers and build them into a new frame to create a charming but eco friendly new piece of furniture. This approach is retro and modern at the same time. Professional touches can range in the thousands of dollars, but find an innovative carpenter and you can probably work out a deal.
Wine Glass Furniture and Other Decorations
Some recycling companies refuse to recycle the green glass from which wine bottles are made of, leaving you with a nice collection if you save them from the landfill. These wine bottles can be cut and sanded into charming drinking glasses, lampshades, and candlestick holders. For a simpler approach, plant your wine bottles in the ground spout side down to create charming flower garden borders.
What are the benefits of switching to hardwood floors throughout your home? They are both decorative and practical. For one thing, hardwood floors increase the resale value of your home and make it easier to sell. Aside from the dollar figures involved, hardwood floors hold a special charm that’s timeless and rustically captivating.
Lasting Durability
Hardwood floors can last for 100 years or more with the proper care. Wood floors are the most durable flooring there is. Grape juice can easily be washed up. Cats can’t tear them up. Hardwood floors maintain their charm and classic grace for centuries. What carpet can say that?
Warmer than laminated floors
Hardwood floors are also much warmer than laminate, which can be cold to the bare feet. Hardwood has a natural warmth. With its thousands of pores, wood has a natural ability to retain heat, especially in the winter. Plastic laminate simply doesn’t last, cracking and falling apart after only a few years.
Cleaner than Carpet
Carpet can grow mold and mildew. Carpet is a virtual breeding ground for dust mites and sucks up animal dander, pollen and other harmful allergens that can antagonize sensitive noses. Unlike carpeting, hardwood floors can be easily cleaned with a mop, clearing out any contaminants. Hardwood floors are especially great for people with allergies because they don’t absorb the things we are allergic too.
All it takes is the occasional sweeping and mopping to keep hardwood floors continually clean. It’s a lot easier to mop a hardwood floor than spraying and cleaning a carpet, which makes hardwood ideal for people with pets and kids. Once a carpet is peed on or stained upon, even carpet cleaner is only so effective as the carpet often carries some sort of permanent stain or odor. Kids and pets may scratch or gouge a hardwood floor, but you’ll actually find this gives character to the floor. If smoothness is a big issue for you, the hardwood floors can always be sanded for a cleanly smooth surface. You can refinish hardwood floors for the perfection you seek.
Carpet is also made of chemicals and plastics, which can be a health hazard for pets, babies and small children. The carpet can be accidentally eaten, causing bad health problems. Sometimes, even breathing in the plastic carpet fumes and sitting on the carpet can cause a small percentage of ingestion. Incremental amounts of the chemicals used to make carpets have been found in the cells of people.
Hardwood Floors match everything
Hardwood flooring easily accentuates any décor, whether your house is contemporary or traditional. They have a timeless appeal and a beauty that never goes out of style. You can’t say the same about 1970s shag carpeting. Great for living rooms, dining rooms or bedrooms, hardwood floors look great in any room in the house. You can even use them in kitchens and bathrooms for a classical appeal, although you might want to choose a special wood for high moisture areas. Talk with your seller for special, non-absorbent wood for areas that might receive a high amount of water.
Add a Throw Rug for Comfort
If you really like the feeling of carpet and spend a lot of time sitting or lying on the floor, you can always decorate the hardwood floor with a rug. A nice throw rug can add the charm and comfort-level of carpet, but are easier to clean. They also contain fewer chemical contaminants. You can get rugs especially designed for people with allergies.
Classical charm is always in style
Above all, hardwood floors present a historical charm that never goes out of style. There’s a warm feeling to the classical appeal of wood, and it’s easier to maintain than a carpet. If you have an older home that already has carpet, it may be worth tearing it up and refinishing the hardwood floor. It can add value to your home as well as personable charm. You’d be surprised by the low cost maintenance, and you’ll never have to worry about stains again.
Does your floor have a stain? Has your hardwood flooring gotten chipped or nicked? Did your pet dig a hole in your carpeting? Coles will fix it- we offer a complete flooring repair service.
We may use carpet from your closet to repair the damaged areas, or leftover pieces from the original installation.
For any type of flooring repair, contact our customer service department.
Armstrong laminate is widely acknowledged as one of the best laminate floors in the business. Armstrong floors are designed for intense durability with a natural wood or stone appearance. However, Armstrong laminate flooring isn’t actually made from wood or stone; instead, an image of wood or travertine stone tile is applied to a special composite plank and then sealed to give it a natural, integrated appearance.
Although laminate flooring looks natural, its cleanliness far surpasses any natural material. While most wood floors have cracks and crevasses between the boards that make it almost impossible to get the floor fully clean, Armstrong laminate flooring is seamless. By simply running a vacuum over the surface of the floor you can feel confident that you are doing your part to keep your house allergen free.
Of course, there is also the traditional carpet alternative: stone tile. Travertine stone tile comes in a wide variety of colors and sizes, but also features great adaptability of installation. It can easily go either inside or outside, replacing unsightly concrete on decks or near swimming pools. But indoors it makes a lovely accent and a beautiful base for any room. Plus, the smooth, non-porous surface is easy to clean and won’t provide a catch basin for dust.
Quickstep takes allergy prevention to a new level by closing the joints between each board completely and providing an easy-to-clean surface that, when kept properly clean, is inhospitable to bacteria. Quickstep laminate flooring is made from the highest quality materials to rigorous design specifications and is available in a wide variety of styles and colors.
The Hypoallergenic Home
In today’s world, almost everyone suffers from allergies. Whether its pet dander, ragweed, pollen, or dust, small particles get trapped in eyes and noses and turn a perfectly pleasant afternoon into an itchy sneezing mess. But even once you enter your home you still aren’t safe from those contagions: if you have carpeting in your house, no matter how much you clean it, you are creating a breeding ground for allergens.
In order to improve the quality of life for yourself and for your family, you need to investigate the many stone tile, Armstrong, and Quickstep laminate flooring options that are available today. Any of these flooring styles provides a healthy, easy-to-clean surface that doesn’t trap dust. Experts have seen incredible changes in allergy sufferers just from the changing of a carpet; don’t you deserve relief from your allergies?
Parquet has a long history, dating back to the magnificent French palaces of the 17th century. But the beautiful geometric patterns, usually quite intricate, have found a place in the finest wide plank flooring and accents of today. Parquet wood flooring is excellent for adding a focal point to a room, or for creating a “room within a room” – a small space outlined with a beautiful, contrasting wood pattern in the floor which divides the space without enclosing it. Parquet provides a particularly lovely contrast when paired with warm and stately reclaimed wood floors.
So, what is parquet? Simply put, parquet is the art of wooden inlays. Parquet is typically very intricate and very elegant, requiring many hours to plan and carve. In the early days, each different parquet piece was hand-carved and assembled to ensure that it would match perfectly. Because the parquet is made entirely from wood there can be no irregularities in fit as there could be in stone floors: if two pieces of parquet are not perfectly sized they will have to be re-made.
In modern use, entire floors are rarely done in parquet. It is far more common to find parquet flooring used as an accent piece, such as a medallion set in the middle of a room and surrounded by wide plank flooring. The elegant, rich tones of the flooring provide a canvas for the parquet, allowing it to stand out and make a beautiful impression. Parquet often coordinates with any wooden furniture in the room, either contrasting with it or highlighting it to really make it pop.
Although parquet wood flooring looks beautiful with any type of wooden floor, many homeowners like to pair it with beautiful and ecologically sensitive reclaimed wood floors. These floors recycle wood from old homes and reuse it, saving trees to protect the environment while providing a lovely classic feel for your home. Parquet inlays fit right in with the rich colors of reclaimed wood and are an excellent finishing touch to any room.
In addition to reclaimed wood flooring, Coles Fine Flooring offers an excellent selection of laminate. With its wide range of color and pattern choices, laminate is an excellent choice for any home. For the green home, a wood laminate floor provides the natural look of wood without the damage to the forest. Laminate is made using an image of the desired flooring which is separated into individual planks and then highly finished and pressurized. This process gives each plank tremendous durability while making the image appear pressed into the plank and completely natural. It also makes the laminate system versatile, as almost any image can be applied.
Even better, the only thing wooden in a wood laminate floor is the name. The actual laminate boards, because of the laminate technology’s use of images, are made with much less wood than a typical wooden board of the same size. Likewise, laminate saves stone. Most people don’t think about the impact of quarries, but the process of digging for stones to be used on stone floors damages the environment almost as much as deforestation.
In addition to reclaimed wood flooring, Coles Fine Flooring offers an excellent selection of laminate. With its wide range of color and pattern choices, laminate is an excellent choice for any home. For the green home, a wood laminate floor provides the natural look of wood without the damage to the forest. Laminate is made using an image of the desired flooring which is separated into individual planks and then highly finished and pressurized. This process gives each plank tremendous durability while making the image appear pressed into the plank and completely natural. It also makes the laminate system versatile, as almost any image can be applied.
Even better, the only thing wooden in a wood laminate floor is the name. The actual laminate boards, because of the laminate technology’s use of images, are made with much less wood than a typical wooden board of the same size. Likewise, laminate saves stone. Most people don’t think about the impact of quarries, but the process of digging for stones to be used on stone floors damages the environment almost as much as deforestation.
Whether you choose reclaimed wood or laminate, thinking about the environment is just the right thing to do. And with Coles Fine Flooring, you don’t have to sacrifice selection to save the planet: we can help you find what you need while never losing sight of what the earth needs.
Mohawk flooring is certainly good. It is durable, quality, and comes in a good range of styles. But Mohawk is only one company of many in the flooring market today. With the internet as a resource, why settle on the first company you find? Find out what exists beyond Mohawk flooring. Enter the world of alternative flooring.
It should hardly come as a surprise to hear that there are floors available beyond wood and stone. From sustainable new-material surfaces to bamboo, cork, reclaimed wood & porcelain tile flooring, the new styles offer all the durability and strength you could want while being environmentally responsible and wallet friendly. Cork flooring has recently become popular due to its unique look and sustainable manufacturing. Cork is an extremely durable material, made from the bark of the cork oak tree. A single cork tree is resilient and easily able to provide many floors from its bark.
Another recent innovation in alternative flooring is porcelain tiles. Although the word “porcelain” might make you think of fragile porcelain in plates and cups, these tiles are as durable as slate. They are fired at a high temperature, making them much stronger than ordinary ceramic tiles and as hard as granite. Many styles of porcelain tile flooring look almost identical to natural stone, but they provide much more versatility: some types are ADA slip-resistant, making them an excellent choice for a pool or other area where water can make traction difficult.
Porcelain tile is very easy to clean. It absorbs almost no water, making cleanup of spills easy and stains almost unheard of. The color of a porcelain tile is also more thoroughly distributed than in natural stone, giving the porcelain a finish and depth that even the best quality natural materials just can’t match. Porcelain tile is also an investment in your home: if you ever decide to sell, the value of your porcelain tile’s striking appearance is likely to be double or triple the price you paid to install it.
Coles now carries Teragren flooring- a bamboo manufacturer known for its strict adherence to environmental standards & guidelines.
Everyone’s joining the green movement, whether it’s purchasing a hybrid vehicle, reducing our water and energy use, or simply recycling, we should all be doing our part. When starting your next home design project, consider environmentally friendly alternatives to reduce your affect on the environment. Recycled materials typically cost less, and add the same charming decor to warm the spirits of your house.
What are the benefits of switching to