You’re in the market for some new wood floors and you’ve heard a number of people mention bamboo as an option. A lot of people say it’s green, it’s durable and it’s cheap. But then, just when you're thinking that's the magic combination, someone goes and says something like “bamboo's not THAT green” or “you get what you pay for.”

Which is the great quandary of every home design desicion, really, isn't it? So many choices!

We discovered simple pro and con list about bamboo, today, from ezinearticles.com. It breaks down bamboo flooring into a few bite-sized snippets, at least getting you started with the basics. Here’s what they have to say [excerpted]:

Making use of bamboo in flooring offers the following advantages:

• Hardness and durability: Though hollow inside bamboo is extremely hard and strong. It is even stronger than many of the hardwoods. It is very resilient too and can resist denting.
• High moisture resistance: Bamboo is highly resistant to moisture and resists spills very well. This makes bamboo flooring particularly good for kitchens and bathrooms.
• Environment friendliness: With the earth becoming fast depleted of hardwoods it is environment friendly to make use of bamboo flooring instead of hardwood flooring as bamboos can grow and reach maturity several times faster than hardwoods and can be ‘cultivated’ too. (GN Editor’s Note: this is especially true when it is harvested locally, not shipped overseas.)
• Easier to be cleaned: A simple sweep daily and application of a mop once a week is all that is required to keep the bamboo flooring clean.

There are some disadvantages associated with bamboo flooring also:

• Bamboo flooring cannot be floated sometimes. Hence, it is to be determined what kind of restrictions apply to installation of the bamboo flooring.
• There have been complaints of bamboo flooring being more brittle than hardwood.

Here are a several examples of what bamboo flooring can look like in a room.

[Image: hardwareaisle.com]

[Image: ambientbp.com]

[Image: hardwood-bamboo-flooring.com]

[Main Image: ehow.com]