Floor

Quote "My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting." -- Quoted in “Jackson Pollock: is he the greatest living painter in the United States?” LIFE 8 Aug. 1949: 42-45

Floors are an important part of the structures we live in, the basic support for all our furniture. Without it we would have nothing to stand on in our homes. There are many different kinds of flooring materials. A floor is so critical that the layout of a building is often referred to as the floor plan.

The term floor is also used to refer to a story or level of a building. The way floors/stories are counted varies in different cultures. Some consider the floor that sits on the ground the "ground floor" and start counting the level above it as the first floor; others count that ground floor as the first floor.

Floors can be decorated with inlays, rugs.

They are good for rolling around on, rough-housing.

Heat radiant floors have piping or other systems inside them to provide heating -- warm tootsies!

Considerations

Different kinds of flooring are more appropriate for some activities. For instance, it's good to have an easy to clean floor where children will be eating. in wet places like bathrooms, it's best to have floors that won't be damaged by the damp. When exercising, it's best to work on a floor that has some "give" or flexibility, for instance a wood or carpet (with padding) floor rather than stone or a thin layer of covering over concrete.

Cleaning

Like father, like son. A toddler "helping" to vacuum the carpet.

Sweeping with a broom works well for many kinds of floor -- everything from packet dirt to wood to marble. It's not too helpful for carpets or rugs. Mopping (mop) is also useful for many floors; again, it doesn't work well for fiber floors like carpet or rugs. Wood floors can be damaged by dampness, so dry mopping or mopping with special cleaners according to the directions may be ok, but water mopping is not generally recommended. But mopping is good for linoleum, tile and other less permeable floors. The fiber floor coverings like carpet or rugs can be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner, a smaller rug can be picked up and shaken our or beaten. Before vacuum cleaners, there were also special brushes for cleaning carpets.

Protection

Floors are protected from scratches by rugs, mats and coasters or felt on furniture legs. Rugs can have protective pretreated chemicals.

Floor quotes and phrases

From ThinkExist [1]:

• “You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.” -- Joe E. Lewis quotes (American Comedian and Singer, 1902-1971) (There's a slightly different version of this on the BrainyQuote collection [2].)
• “Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?” -- M.C. Escher quotes

Floor-related phrases:

• get in on the ground floor - to get involved, usually in an investment opportunity, at the beginning
• clean, wipe or mop the floor with someone - to beat the person up
• floor someone - to surprise or shock someone
• a floor that's clean enough to eat off - spotless, abnormally clean

Related

old Finnish rug

• wood floor (and some woods: oak, cherry wood, teak
• tile
• linoleum
• stone
• carpet (wall to wall)
• rug
• bamboo
• concrete
• cork
• laminate
• vinyl
• dirt

External links

• Demesne on Choosing Floor Coverings for Your Home: So Many Choices, So Little Time
• Wikipedia's article on floor

• floor idioms from the Free Dictionary .com
• Painters Melbourne - Konnstruct.com.au