FLOORS
Faux Wood Is Not Going Away Wood-look tile has been trending for the past few years — treasured for its easy maintenance and (usually) lower cost compared with real hardwood. The wood look showed up everywhere at the Surfaces show, in materials including porcelain, laminate and vinyl. Pictured here is a selection of faux-wood porcelain tiles from Bedrosians Tile and Stone.
The floor design flows from the front entry into the powder room and the combined kitchen and living space shown here. In the back right corner of this photo you can see the coppery-orange floor area in the kitchen space. Lampshire also created the pink piece surrounding the fireplace, shown on the left side of this photo. What looks like tall windows at the back of the room is actually a trifold door; the doors can fold into each other in three groupings and then be pushed off to the side all together to create an open-air feeling. The doors let in views of the small lake on the property. The homeowners sourced the futuristic chandelier, which is outlined with LED lighting.
Lampshire created some samples for the couple, culminating in a 10-by-10-foot mockup of the design. Once the homeowners approved it, Lampshire got to work in full scale. To form the floor, Lampshire used a liquid epoxy product from manufacturer Diamond Coat that has no VOCs, or volatile organic compounds. The first step was sanding down the oriented strand board subfloor to make it as smooth and level as possible. Next he added a skim coat of clear epoxy about one-sixteenth of an inch thick to form the floor’s base. Once the coat was dry he sanded the epoxy to smooth out any bumps or nonlevel areas. Then Lampshire added aluminum bars to separate the floor’s various color blocks. You can just see these bars at the transitions between colors in this photo. He applied a second clear coat of the epoxy and layered in the color, spraying colors in and hand-mixing them, allowing them to run together to create an artistic, organic-looking meld. The final step was a clear topcoat over the entire floor. The process took about 10 days.
Floor artist: Rob Lampshire, owner of One of a Kind Flooring in Grand Junction, Colorado The owners of this open living space near the Colorado River wanted a floor that looked like abstract art. “I like funky, I like artsy, I like colors, I like sophisticated and clean, I like a look that slaps you in the face,” says homeowner Cindy Conkle-Richards. “After spending hours and hours on the internet looking at everything from patterns on fabrics, wallpaper and rugs to various floors for design ideas and inspiration, I came up with a grand vision for the layout and colors I wanted for the epoxy floors in my home,” she says. But finding the right artisan took some work. Fortunately, the construction superintendent working on the home for design-builder Mike Zag of Zag Built knew the work of floor artist Rob Lampshire, a 30-year construction industry veteran and former roofer who now focuses on one-of-a-kind flooring. A few years ago Lampshire took a training course on how to use epoxy products. He fell in love with the medium and earlier this year started a business called One of a Kind Flooring. He now makes custom floors, counters, wall finishes, pillars, coffee tables and art pie...
Emser Tile’s Hollywood tile. Photo from Emser Tile Faux-wood tile is looking more and more like the real thing, thanks to improvements in the digital printing technology used to produce the tiles. Wood-look tile is the biggest seller among Bedrosians Tile and Stone’s porcelain tile lines, says the company’s Kyle Torosian.
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