Floored

In the seemingly never ending saga of renovating our kitchen, which is now well past its one year anniversary, we're about to go and pick up our new flooring. It arrived into the store last week, but we've both been down with the dreaded springtime cold and didn't really have the motivation to do anything more than was absolutely necessary. Now, the flooring thing might be normal in many countries, but it certainly was new to me coming from New Zealand.

The majority of Swedish homes have exposed timber flooring. As opposed to carpet, which is almost unheard of. If not timber, then you'll most often find vinyl floor coverings. But, back to timber again. In New Zealand, a home would have timber flooring supported by timber floor joists. In other words, the timber flooring is structural in nature. If you were to replace the timber flooring, it is generally because there was a problem with the floor, such as rot or water damage. I would be asking questions if I saw a house with new timber flooring. A lot of properties for sale here in Sweden often list new flooring, and the date it was replaced. However, unlike in NZ, this is most likely for pure cosmetic reasons. Most timber floors you see in Sweden are not structural. They really are not much more than a timber form of carpet, laid directly onto a concrete floor slab or on top of a solid timber base. People often change the floors when they redecorate, in the same way that other countries lay new carpets. The timber floor cladding comes in interlocking strips about 10 or 15cm wide. Apparently it's pretty easy to lay the stuff yourself. Personally, I think it's money well spent to pay someone else to have the grief while I'm away at work.

Not having carpets on the floor was a new experience for me. But now I see the merits of having a solid floor. First of all, carpets aren't really necessary here. The main reason for carpet is to keep your feet warm on a cold floor. The wonderful insulation methods used in Swedish building construction means that floors are seldom cold underfoot. We're lucky in our apartment building that we live on the top floors, which means that we benefit the most from the heat absoption and distribution properties of concrete floors. We're laying our new timber flooring on top of an existing vinyl floor covering which is attached to a concrete floor slab. Hopefully this will give a bit more cushioning underfoot as well as giving an extra layer of warmth and sound absorption. That's the theory at least. Another big bonus of course is that it is much easier to clean up any spills.

We have a couple of more cabinets still to purchase from Ikea which means that we might ALMOST be ready for installing after the summer holidays. A new kitchen for Christmas ? That's what we had orignally planned for, we just didn't know WHICH Christmas it would be.