It may seem unlikely,
but some of the best floors we’ve ever seen are those that have employed unusual materials rather than your standard wood, tiles, carpet or linoleum. Here’s some of the most outlandish we can think of, and we think you’ll agree that the creativity behind of these ideas is off the scale!
Old Leather Belts
TING is a design company that creates luxury products from salvaged materials. Recently they’ve been sourcing old leather belts, removing the metalwork, hand-cleaning them and then processing them as flooring. What you’re left with is an attractive, subtle and hard-wearing floor, with the colour and pattern balance predetermined before a single one is laid down. Ideal for a clothing store!
Bottle Caps
Take a look at the Bone House in Texas, an artists’ studio with an eye-catching bathroom floor created from thousands of colourful bottle caps. As an example of sustainable architecture this is hard to beat, very low-cost, zero carbon use, and removing waste from the environment. But given the amount of time you’d need to spend finding all the caps, it’s probably only suitable for very small rooms. A similar but more neutral effect could be gleaned by using pennies.
Paper Bags
Tearing old brown paper bags into shapes and laying them down allows for beautiful patterns. You simply arrange them however you want and then put a thin layer of polyurethane over them to seal the floor. Owners of floors such as this reckon they look like a hybrid of cork, hardwood and leather, and we’d imagine they’re pretty pleased with the price-tag as well!
Wine Corks
The perfect flooring solution for a vineyard, or anyone with a passion for the fruits of the vine, wine cork floors look lovely, and feel great beneath your feet too. A floor of this was created for another room at the Bone House, with around 72 corks per square foot needed, so if you’d like to follow suit, better start drinking.
