Flooring is the general name given to all materials used to cover floors. The main purposes of flooring are to keep rooms clean, dry, and warm, and to provide decoration. Common floorings include concrete, linoleum, stone, sheet vinyl, wall-to-wall carpeting, wood, and tile. Tile may be made of carpet, ceramics, cork, rubber, vinyl or other plastics, or vinyl composite (vinyl embedded within reinforcing material). Another popular floor covering is laminate flooring. This flooring begins with a fiberboard or particleboard core. The top side is covered with a layer of paper printed with a woodgrain or other design pattern. The paper is then coated with a clear, durable layer of plastic composite.
The first floors were probably only the leveled dirt of the land over which early shelters were built. Ancient temples and large public buildings had floors of stone and baked clay. The Greeks used marble in floors. The Romans learned how to make cement. Stone was the most common flooring of public buildings and churches during the Middle Ages, from the A.D. 400’s through the 1400’s. In the 1500’s, the Venetians developed terrazzo, flooring made of granulated marble mixed with gray or white cement. Wood was first used as flooring in the Middle Ages. Parquet floors of different colored woods arranged in designs decorated early palaces. Linoleum was invented in England about 1860.
See also House (Floors); Interior design (Floor coverings); Linoleum; Tile.
