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Fontenay Creates Wine Barrel Flooring

Filed under: Decor, Wine, Architecture & Design

There are certainly better ways to show off your oenophile passions and good design sense than a wine cork board, namely, Fontenay's flooring made from vintage wine barrels.

Selling itself as the "the only provider of reclaimed wine barrel flooring and countertops in the world," Fontenay offers three types of wood choices in its Vintage Barrel Collection. The Cooperage line takes its wood from the barrel heads, leaving intact the cooper stamps, various marking and an aged patina. For the Wine Infusion line, material from the barrel's inside is used. Naturally stained due to contact with the wine, the effect is a mosaic of juice-soaked colors. Finally, the Stave collection consist of the barrel's exterior wood strips, straightened to form boards, and then engineered to create flooring. These floors display the grains, age marks and a rustic distressing. Since no two planks are the same, in any of the lines, installation creates a unique finish best suited for wine cellars, tasting/dining rooms or kitchens. Fontenay also offers furniture, including wine racks, created from barrels.

With reclaimed wood being the au courant, green-minded design material of choice these days it's nice to see a product that has such a recognizable provenance being used in such an innovative way.

Veledo Leather Flooring

Filed under: Decor


Can leather flooring be sustainable? Merida Meridian has created a new recycled leather-flooring product called Veledo. Merida has been a large area rug manufacturer focused on natural fiber rugs, this is their first foray into leather. Veledo is a 96% natural bonded leather plank (4% pigment), made from postindustrial waste collected from European mill scrap leather. Unlike traditional leather tiles, Veledo offers a hard, durable surface with the look of real leather. It is designed with an attached subfloor and an interlocking channel system so that it can be installed over almost any surface. It comes in four different styles including crocodile.

Whisky Barrels Make Unique Flooring

Filed under: Decor, Green

whisky barrel flooring Any whisky aficionado knows how much of a difference wood makes in whisky flavor. Whisky barrels often have a history even before they get to the distillery, barrels used to contain sherry, for example, impart dried fruit notes to the whisky. But what happens to the wood once it has given all it can to the spirits? It used to just be used for fuel but lately the wood has yet another life. U.K.-based McKay Flooring Limited has used old casks turning them into flooring. The barrels have the stamps of the distillery but planks are laid down in scrambled order. It doesn't really have a strong whisky smell but it certainly tickles the imagination. McKay Flooring also sells reclaimed flooring from old gymnasiums, thankfully no smell there either.

[via Core 77]

EcoLux Flooring Combines Precious Metals With FSC Woods

Filed under: Decor, Green


A few years ago I was in a home with bamboo floors. They were just beautiful, and with bamboo being sustainable, much less guilt-inducing than non-sustainable floors.

Boston-based EcoModern Design has taken the sustainable floor a step further with one of its newer products -- EcoLux flooring. This is a gold-, silver- or copper-leafed, or imitation gold leaf, Forest Stewardship Council-certified hardwood, bamboo, or engineered maple. It is made with metal gilding using a 2,000-year-old technique. The company's David Sanborn previously was a paintings restorer and now uses the same techniques to produce flooring.

The floors are offered with custom border edges, which can be used as wall panels and veneer wallpaper. EcoLux is sold by the square foot, as a border edge or in repeating border edge patterns.

GelPro Comfort Mats for Kitchen and Bath

Filed under: Decor

In feeding my newfound addiction to home makeovers, I recently came across GelPro mats. I immediately wanted one -- my kitchen and bathroom both have cold stone floors, which are nice to look at but hard on the feet and back.

The company promotes the mats this way: "world's only gel-filled anti-fatigue floor mat relieves pain and fatigue caused from standing on hard flooring. Great for everyone, perfect for those with back pain, foot pain, or arthritis." I just like they way they look as compared to a cloth rug (especially in a newly-remodeled kitchen with granite and stainless steel), which slides around and doesn't offer any support.

The mats, which are designed and assembled in the USA, come in a variety of colors, fabrics, and styles. Try out the ones you like in the site's interactive kitchen. They even got an endorsement from our friends at Slashfood, which also features an interview with the company founder. Prices range from $99.95 - $299.95.

Remodeling? Consider $1,000,000 Diamond Floor Tiles

Filed under: Decor


We've all heard stories when we were kids about far away kings and queens that were so rich they never went anywhere without having rose petals (or some other lavish item) sprinkled beneath their feet as they walked. But as much fun as it is to imagine living like that it's not something that really realistic, is it?

Pietra Firma
thinks it is, and for the perfectly realistic (*cough*) price of just $1,000,000 per square meter they offer floor tiles not made of roses but instead each featuring over 1000 genuine diamonds, along with thousands of insets of precious materials like mother of pearl, abalone, and black onyx.

So ... they are beautiful. I wonder how many square meters they've sold and to who?

Eco-friendly Flooring Made of Peach Pits?

Filed under: Decor, Green


Think "eco-friendly home design" and a lot of different options come to mind, but I'm willing to bet fruit pits as flooring isn't one of them.

Alla le Roux feels differently however, and after being inspired by personal experience has started a business (Stone Fruit Floors) that designs and sells handmade flooring created out of peach pits. The pits are sanded down (to get rid of sharp edges and make them more comfortable to walk on) and set into the floor by hand along with glue, sand, and a resin mixture. The end result looks like a strange mix between hardwood, tile, and linoleum.

Interesting... I'm not really sure what else to say about this!


Via Luxury Housing Trends


Vintage Belt Floor Mat

Filed under: Decor


At first glance it looks like weathered multi-colored wood flooring, and at second glance maybe some kind of throw rug, but then by the third glance hopefully you've got it figured out: it's a floor mat made of vintage belts! I'm not usually one for leather accessories, but I'm all for recycling and reusing and this is pretty cool. Designed by Inqhua Ting, the Vintage Belt Floor Mat brings old leather belts new life by mounting them together on a backing of reconstituted leather and glue. Handmade, each mat is unique and will have it's own earthy warm feeling. 27.5" across, $648.

Puzzle Carpeting

Filed under: Decor

Another puzzle-themed piece to add to our ever growing collection is the Imperial Puzzle Carpet. Available at Ona in packages of 6 for $56, the modular carpet can be arranged just like a puzzle, though its slightly irregular pieces mean that there is more than one "right" way to do so. Only three colors are available - light grey, charcoal and sand - so the puzzle will attract interest, but won't detract from the rest of the room.

[via Babygadget, which suggests that the grey colors would help hide stains, making the rug a great choice for a kids' playrooms]

Puzzle Floors

Filed under: Decor

We have a soft spot for puzzle pieces when it comes to design. It's one thing to use them on our tables or in our gardens, but Puzzle Floor really hits it out of the park with their puzzle-piece hardwood floors. Each piece is made from northern hardwood and is available in 13 different colors that will flatter almost all rooms. The colors can be mixed and matched to create unique designes, if desired. There are two shapes, a "male" and a "female" which snap together easily, much in the same way that laminate flooring does, though the sealed hardwood will last longer than laminate because it can be refinished every few years to eliminate any signs of wear. The flooring is $15 per square foot.

Hardwood Rug

Filed under: Decor

Associated with a rug because of its shape, this very unique Hardwood Rug is made from thin beechwood and cork. It is so thin, in fact, that it can roll up for easy portability and storage. When unrolled, it covers a 30x59-inch area. The "rug" is designed to add a touch of elegance to spaces that have industrial or concrete flooring, or even to apartments where it is not worth the hassle or expense to lay down full hardwood floors. Price: $249.

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