What Types of Rugs Are Best for Bamboo Wood Floors?

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Throwing down rugs on a wide expanse of bamboo flooring can change up the room and update your style. When selecting rugs for bamboo floors, there are a few things to consider before you fluff it out and lay it down.

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Rugs on hardwood floors can leach dyes, scratch the surface or otherwise damage the bamboo flooring. Take some time to protect the planks, as well as the rugs for bamboo floors, so that you can enjoy them both for decades.

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Bamboo Environmental Considerations

Introduced more than 20 years age as an environmentally-friendly and sustainable flooring product, bamboo continues to rise as a solid décor choice for more than one reason. It only takes about 5 years for bamboo to grow large and strong enough to be harvested for flooring.

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Bamboo has become a popular flooring choice for its affordability and natural beauty. It is durable, renewable and absolutely gorgeous. Bamboo flooring fits in with traditional styling, as well as modern and industrial home décor.

Bamboo Flooring Breakdown

Natural solid bamboo is harder than most domestic hardwoods, such as red oak. Carbonized or engineered bamboo is not as strong, because the carbonizing process involves soaking the bamboo fibers, which weakens them.

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Bamboo is a sturdy grass that is highly processed to create the engineered flooring. The strands of bamboo grass are thinly sliced and shredded, then pressed together with high heat and durable resins.

Rugs for Bamboo Flooring

The best rugs for bamboo flooring are designed to not interact with the floor materials. They should be scratch-resistant and colorfast. A rug can keep sunlight from damaging bamboo flooring.

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Look for rugs that are non-slip, as well as UV and water resistant. This will keep the bamboo flooring from getting damaged over time and keep it in its best condition.

There are a few good area rug fiber options to consider when you have bamboo flooring. These include silk, wool, cotton, and jute.

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Rugs to Avoid for Bamboo Floors

Bamboo may seem highly durable but it does have its drawbacks. Although they add texture and color, some natural fiber rugs can wreak havoc on the smooth surface of a bamboo floor. The compressed planks can get scratched by natural fiber rugs.

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Rugs to avoid include sea grass, sisal, horse hair, rattan, and wicker.

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Dye Don’ts for Bamboo Flooring

A colorful rug can increase the aesthetic of a gorgeous bamboo floor. It can also leave large, fuzzy pools of color on your pristine bamboo flooring.

Choose a rug that has a colorfast label. This means it was treated and the colors won't leach through to the wood.

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Cleaning Bamboo Flooring Under Rugs

Bamboo flooring is easy to maintain with a daily sweep. Use a damp mop and mild soap-and-water solution to keep the bamboo flooring clean with typical traffic and use.

Pick up the rug and shake it out to loosen any dust and debris that can eventually damage the bamboo flooring underneath. You may want to clean underneath the rug thoroughly at least once a month. Inexpensive varieties of bamboo flooring are more susceptible to scratches.

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What Lies Beneath

Not everyone uses a rug mat, and not every rug needs a non-slip natural rubber rug pad beneath its weighty fiber surface.

A rug mat on a bamboo floor keeps the rug from slipping, the fibers from the rug causing irreversible scratches, surface damage and colors from leaking into the fibers of the top layer of bamboo.

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