So, I find myself in a bona fide environmental quandary. (Perhaps I should write a letter to Umbra!) My wife and I just bought a house — we’ll be moving in in a couple of weeks. A few days ago we ripped up the (tattered, cat-pee-stinking) carpet, to discover that there are not, marketing claims to the contrary, "hardwoods throughout." Most of the floor, in fact, looks like some kind of particle board.
Long story short: we need new floors throughout the house.
This will mean hardwoods (or laminate fake hardwoods) in most of the rooms, and carpet in the bedrooms.
Yes, yes, I know that bamboo and cork and reclaimed Peruvian hardwoods are eco-friendly. The problem is that we practically bankrupted ourselves getting the damn house in the first place, and we don’t have many thousands of extra dollars to spend on this project. So there’s some triage involved.
I draw on the collective wisdom of the blogosphere: in terms of flooring, what’s a good balance of cost, durability (two young kids, remember), and eco-friendliness?
