Attempting to Live a Sustainable Lifestyle in St. Louis

Saturday was the flooring hunt. Felt like if we could spend one day and see all of our flooring options, then we could make an informed decision and get our architect the necessary information for pricing.

Remember, the criteria is:

1.  Sustainable – The floor must be made from old tires or recycled wheel chairs or something.

2. Long lasting/low maintenance -  Need something reliable, that wears well, and can take a beating (for the kids someday).

3. Stylish – needs to be as attractive as, if not more attractive than a non-sustainable floor.

4.  Cheap – Gotta be as cheap as the nearest good looking, non-sustainable flooring.

Drum roll please……………..

The winners (so far) are Forbo for the kitchen and baths. And bamboo for the bedroom floor (rest the floors have the original wood).  Read here for Treehugger’s view on bamboo floors; luckily we’re using in the bedroom, so don’t see any issues with it being a somewhat soft wood.

We found our Forbo and Bamboo at this Home Eco store in St Louis. It appears to to be the only supplier of Forbo, so we might have to get it there. And maybe we’ll let our floor installer choose where they want to get the bamboo from.

So this is where we are now. Feeling pretty good about Eco Flooring, and by the way, the cost is roughly $5/sq foot for Forbo and $4/sq foot for bamboo. So it’s all pretty reasonable.