Best Kids’ Flooring Ever!

I introduced you to Tarkett last week as our floor sponsor. Today, I want to show you how the right flooring can totally transform the entire look and feel of a room.

We have completed painting the walls and ceiling of Elijah’s room, however the nasty shag carpet is really holding this room back from all it could be! The below picture does not show how impossible the carpet was to clean, how dirty it was on top and especially underneath when we tore it out, how it collected dander and pollen from outside, or how musty it smelled. You can see that it does nothing to compliment the room or create an exciting environment for kids.

Let me introduce to you Tarkett’s Fiber Floor!

Moms, you are going to love this revolutionary flooring. It was actually made for families – even my family with 2 kids and a large dog running in and out the doors carrying with them mud and who knows what else from the woods. A hard floor surface is a must for allergies too.

Tarkett’s Fiber Floor actually comes in so many styles that you could install it in your entire house with the variety of looks and styles.  Fiber Floor is designed to withstand the wear and tear of an active family. It is resistant to water, moisture (especially needed for us in a shady wooded area), scuffs, scratches, and indentations.  Plus, Fiber Floor is warm and comfortable, maybe you wouldn’t expect that in a hard floor surface! Check out their entire line from Classic, to Fun, to Fashion flooring!

Tarkett offers amazing kids room floors

Your kids will flip if you allow them to select a Tarkett Fiber Floor. There is something for boys and girls from toddlers to teens in the Easy Living Fun Collection.  I love the collection name, shouldn’t all flooring be fun anyway?! Especially for kids, this line has everything from splashy bubbles and dancing shapes and polka dots to full cityscapes and island paradises. Elijah’s room is a jungle, nature theme so the Fiber Floor Funtastic Island theme was perfect!

Arrival of Tarkett Fiber Floor

The arrival of our Tarkett Fiber Floor was pretty exciting. Elijah could not wait to see his new floor! We moved the furniture out of our living room in order to place and unroll the kids flooring. This was so convenient because we could unroll it, measure, and cut it before taking it upstairs.

If you do the installation WITH your children around, you can expect to add 20% to the time it takes to get this done.  Elijah decided to try it out before we even got it upstairs!   He was so excited about his new floor, he loves the islands and everything there is to look at and explore.

Installing Tarkett Fiber Floor

I could tell you that there is an exact science to the installation of the product, and that my husband and father in law simply followed the directions exactly, but I’ll just tell you the steps that they took- whether or not they were written down!

Before the floor arrived, we had already torn out the carpet, pounded and pulled out all the old carpet staples, and made the floor as smooth as possible.  Fiber Floor is pretty resilient as it can be put over a wood subfloor, an even flatter new plywood floor, or, if its decent, an existing vinyl floor.

The first step that we took was to rough cut the size of the product to the right length of one of the dimensions of the room (plus closet door size, plus room door size), minus 1/4 “.  This 1/4” is for stretching of the material during room temperature swings.

Unrolling the Fiber Floor once we got it in the bedroom was pretty easy with 2 people to adjust it. Once we placed it in the room, we cut around the closet and bedroom doors and slid the flooring into place. Surprisingly, that’s it. In the directions ( OK, we read a LITTLE) there are two installation methods- one with adhesive, and one… without!  Because we had to add a couple of more pieces and seam them in, we had to chose the NO adhesive method- great, less mess!!

The installation also went very quickly because we have hot water heat running around the perimeter of our house.   The water pipes and metal covers extend about 2″ into the room, meaning that we had 2″ of leeway on making that cut by the wall.  My father in law was careful with his cuts, but hubby Matt, not so much- but best thing- it didn’t matter.

Elijah’s room is big in this house. It’s 13.5 x 15′.  That means for product that is 12′ wide, we had to have some seams in the floor.  If you room is about 12′ or smaller in the smallest dimension you will get away with the seaming part.

Large Pattern Match and Seam

The pattern repeat for this island repeat print is big, roughly 4′ x 6′ and then it repeats.  That means that you could have to throw away up to 3′ of material to make the seams work to match the islands together.  But, that was not the case in our room- we cut off about 18″- not bad at all.  It all depends on the room size I guess.

We added the second piece of material that was cut to OVERLAP the already installed portion by 2″ or more, with patterns matching.  Then, the guys took a sharp utility knife and cut a deep straight line right through both pieces of material.  What happens here is kind of a neat trick of the trade- when you cut through BOTH pieces of material, and pull out BOTH excess strips of material- you are left with a perfectly matched seam.  The only trick is to cut the material DEEP and STRAIGHT DOWN.  If you cut at an angle, the seam will show the exposed white vinyl underneath and it will look bad.

Next the double sided seam tape was placed first sticky side down onto the floor.  The two flooring pieces were realigned (just one more time to be sure) and placed over the tape.  The top of the tape had a paper release liner that we pulled up through the seam as per below, and the two materials laid flat right over the tape.  It took us a few tries with the tape to figure out that this way was the best.

Lunch Break! – we brought in pizza from Pizza Bogo.  Great international flavors.

OK, back to the floor.  A two part epoxy was also provided.  It is just a wet glue that you mix up with a slick little applicator.  This adhesive was applied to the top side of all the seams.  The application process took about 3 minutes.  Extremely easy, and not messy.

This was my husband’s first time double cutting a seam. He had to line up the island theme perfectly and did so perfectly!  I dare you to try to find the seam! He did an incredible job!

We had to let the floor rest for 24 hours before putting the furniture back on, especially around the seam. If you are questioning my comment above that the floor is actually warm and comfortable, let me assure you, Fiber Floor is comfortable enough to sleep on! Ok, maybe not for grownups but my kids could not wait to sleep on it and did so for the first 3 nights!! I had to end the sleepovers for fear that they would not want to sleep in their own rooms.

What makes Fiber Floor so soft?

It is the TechniCore structured foam technology. There is a TechniCore foam layer in the Fiber Floor that adds cushion and indentation protection. It really creates a comfortable, warm and inviting flooring. I have already had a few people check out Elijah’s floor and they have commented on how surprised they are that it is so soft and comfortable. As a mom, that was my #1 reason for not considering a hard floor surface compared to carpet in kids room. A hard flooring was recommended because of my son’s allergies, especially with additional pollen coming in from the woods.

We love our Tarkett Fiber Floor

I could not be more pleased with our Tarkett Fiber Floor. My son loves it. He has been playing non-stop in his room. First he was a Giant looking down at the islands. Then, he and my daughter have started Island Jumping.

If you enter his room, you have to stay off of the water, kinda hard with big feet but we manage. 🙂 Mostly, my son loves just playing with his toys on the floor, he’s driving his cars on the islands and across the bridges. He gets his little toy guys out and they explore the islands.

I love the creativity that the Funtastic Island has spurred in my son. Tarkett Fiber Floor is fabulous! More pictures and posts to come!

This was not a paid post. My own opinions were used based on my perceptions and experience. Thank you to Tarkett who supplied the product for review and the ongoing relationship with AkronOhioMoms.com. Check out the great selection of products at http://www.tarkettna.com.

Cindy

Founder and Lead Blogger at Akron Ohio Moms

Cindy is the top Akron Blogger with her own take on awesome brands for families, where to vacation for families, a beat on local activities and family fun, a knack for getting moms to share , and a house that is always 2 weeks away from a complete remodel!