Floors and Floor Coverings
Floors should be substantial, durable, cleanly, dry, warm, noiseless, slow-burning, and not slippery.
Any uncovered floor will be noisy.
Stone, tile, mosaic, and concrete are noisy. Glass and marble are slippery.
Hardwood, or softwood covered with linoleum or corticene, will answer in most rooms and passages.
Variations of cork, or cork on a solid foundation, are now common, and have been found satisfactory. Invention is at work on this style of floor, and may evolve something near perfection, if fairly cheap. Linoleum wears badly, except in the best grades, and seems to be going out of favor.
The new Springfield (Mass.) library has sawdust concrete as a one-inch base for a cork carpet. The St. Louis building just dedicated has wooden strips over concrete to which a thick cork top is nailed.
Carpets and matting, general or in strips, are very objectionable in catching dust or mud, and difficult to clean off.
Rubber mats or rubber tiling has been favored for floor-covering and for stairs.
The Librarian[180] reports from England, as follows:—
“Stone, mosaics, and the like, are seldom used except in lobbies.
“Plain boards do not wear well.
“Wood blocks (oak or maple), rift-sawn and dressed (not washed), resist wear, though noisy.
“Good linoleum, cemented on boards, blocks, or concrete, resists wear.
“Rubber flooring seems superb, but has not been tested here.”
[Nothing is said about corticene or cork, so much used in America.]
Several “floor dressings” are advertised, said to be of two general classes—dust-fixers, or beeswax polish.
Champneys[181] warns that angles of floor and ceiling with walls, and all interior corners of walls, should be rounded or “coved,” for easy cleansing.
Miss Marvin[182] thinks that for a small library, plain cork carpet, of the best and thickest quality, without pattern, is best, being durable, noiseless and easily cleaned.
Bostwick,[183] discussing various forms, and criticising each, says that a sheathing of soft wood, covered with linoleum, leaves little to be desired, though it sometimes rots, and that in various patent floorings no trustworthy standard has been found.
My own advice would be to watch developments, and take the matter up anew with your architect, in view of his experience and inquiries, added to yours.