What is Epoxy Flooring?

 If you’ve heard of epoxy flooring, you’re probably wondering what it’s all about – and what it’s used for. Epoxy flooring is a hard-wearing and durable flooring option that is used in many homes, as well as commercial and industrial areas.

What is Epoxy Flooring?

Epoxy flooring is a type of flooring that consists of multiple layers of epoxy – a type of polymer that is formed by combination of two liquid chemicals. Epoxy is essentially created by combining these two liquids together so that when hardened, they create a durable, seamless and hard floor.

Epoxy flooring is defined as a floor with epoxy that is a minimum of 2mm deep; anything less than this is generally known as epoxy coating, rather than epoxy flooring.

The Growth of Epoxy Flooring

Epoxy flooring is common in commercial and industrial businesses and can be used in places like factory floors, show rooms, bathrooms and industrial kitchens, and in other areas like industrial offices and lunch rooms.

Epoxy flooring is becoming a popular choice in modern home flooring due to its durability, its resistance to chemicals and cleaning products and the ease of maintenance. In residential homes, epoxy floors are common in kitchens, living areas, bathrooms, basements and garages.

The Benefits of Epoxy Flooring

Epoxy flooring has a wide range of benefits for use both in the home and in industrial and commercial areas:

·         -Extremely durable

·        - Ability to withstand high/heavy traffic

·         -Highly resistant to chemicals, spills and fluids

·         -Easy to maintain and clean

·         -Slip resistant and scratch resistant

·        - Resistant to allergens and bacteria, thus extremely hygienic and ideal for asthma or allergy sufferers

·         -An anti-static flooring solutions in commercial/industrial areas

·         -Unaffected by humidity

·         -Seamless, smooth appearance with a glossy finish – no cracks to attract dust or dirt

·         -Extremely modern and appealing, with a range of colours and patterns

·         -Cost effective

Types of Epoxy Flooring

Epoxy flooring comes in a range of types, depending on whether you require it for industrial, commercial or residential use. Self-dispersing and self-levelling floors are generally considered good for high and heavy traffic areas and are used frequently in all types of businesses and at home. Mortar epoxy is the more durable and strongest of epoxy floors and is ideal to use as a base or to repair a broken floor.

Gravelled, terrazzo and flake epoxy floors are considered decorative floors and are used to create a desired look – ideal for those looking for unique designs.

Epoxy Aesthetic

The beauty of epoxy flooring is its flexibility when it comes to colour design, textures and patterns. Because it is made of liquid, epoxy flooring can easily be modified depending on the colour scheme of your home or work space. Epoxy can also be used to create different flooring patterns. You can have floors that resemble marble, tiles or stone, that are dotted or speckled or that are all one, seamless colour.

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Heart-Shaped Adiantum

Captured in our backyard. Like its heart-shaped leaves.

The Weekend in Black and White

Creating a Sense of Space in Your Home

If you have a smaller home, you’ll probably find that you really need to create a sense of space inside, so that you don’t feel too “cooped up.” It’s all just a matter of being a little more clever and creative with your space! 

Choosing Colours

When it comes to designing and choosing the décor for your small home, use light and neutral colours like whites, creams, beiges and pastels to keep your home feeling bright, big and open. Whites and creams work best for wall colours – generally speaking, stay away from browns and greys, which tend to absorb light rather than enhance it.

When it comes to choosing your furniture, select colours that match well with your walls and floors as well. Bright or stark colours will make a space feel broken up and fragmented, while neutral-toned furniture will blend in more and make your space feel bigger. You can then diversify your major furniture items with more brightly coloured accessories, like lamps, shelves, chairs and side tables.

Let in Natural Light

Light playss a large part in making your small space seem bigger. Lots of natural light is ideal, so open up windows and curtains during the day. This will make your room seem bigger because the barrier between inside/outside has been partially removed. Curtains often feel more ‘flowing’ and open than blinds do, so consider switching your blinds for translucent or sheer curtains and keep the curtains the length of the window. If the view outside is not very nice, decorate the windowsill with plants or other hanging ornaments that are pleasant to look at.

Using Artificial Light   

If you’re short on natural light, consider installing extra lights to brighten your space – for instance, you may want to install a ceiling fan with lights and improve your lighting and ventilation in one. At night, counterbalance ceiling lights with small lamps to take away shadows, which can make your space feel smaller.

Furniture & Storage

Furniture is often your biggest problem in a small home. Trade in your old bulky couch or bed for something smaller or skinnier and keep your furniture against the walls, so it doesn’t divide up space.

It’s also handy to invest in furniture that doubles as extra storage space, such as a bed with drawers underneath or a coffee table with a drawer or skirt for storing magazines and other bits and pieces. Again, use wall space where you can; for instance, could you mount your brand new LG TV on the wall, instead of using an entertainment unit.

In the kitchen, use drawers to keep your utensils and appliances hidden away, so that they don’t take up bench space. You can also consider lots of built-in furniture here to save space, like fold-out kitchen tables and a garbage bin built into the cupboard. 

Mirrors & Glass

Mirrors can help make small spaces look larger. Use mirrors to reflect small spaces or consider changing your regular cupboard doors for glass doors, which will increase the depth of your rooms. If you have an opaque shower curtain or door in the bathroom, replace this with a transparent curtain or glass door, which will make the bathroom look much bigger and more open.

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Should IT be In House or Outsourced?

IT services are becoming increasingly important to doing business in a modern world, but, should you have in house or outsourced professionals to save money? The decision can be difficult with both options having their merits as you will save money on outsourcing but having in house IT experts can be a life saver should something go wrong or to do specific tasks such as maintain a web design project.

Saving Money on Outsourcing

Outsourcing isn’t for every company, or indeed, every task that you need to complete within your business. It does, however, let many small to medium sized enterprises find services that they could not afford to do in house. This is especially true in terms of web design and search engine optimisation which would require hiring an expert.

So for your outsourcing money, not only will you get expert products and services, but, you won’t have to pay an ongoing wage. It is also much easier for you to hire and fire outsourced professionals if they are not doing the job you needed done. Likewise, if they are doing a great job you can easily offer them or their company more work.

Developing Systems in House

However, it may depend on what kind of business you are operating and it is hoped that if you were an IT company that you would have professionals in this field. This allows you to develop systems in house that then belong to the company.

It is likely, however, that your IT business is a specialist in one certain area of technology so it might still need outside help in some areas. For example, if you were an anti-virus company you may still need advice on cloud computing for your business, even though you work with computers every day.

If you have a strong IT department then they may be able to develop industry specific IT resources that would then be unique to your business. This is a way of monetising your IT staff as well as creating new products and services for your business or for your existing clients.

Mixing Outsourcing and in House

In the ideal world you will be mixing outsourced and in house IT services. All of the essential services should be in house or, as is the case in most companies, you should have at least one IT professional to oversee the hiring and maintenance of outsourced IT services.

What’s Your Speciality?

When deciding whether to outsource or keep your IT services in house you need to recognise what your speciality is. If you are wasting time trying to market your business online then you should hire professionals and regain your lost hours.

It is essential that you have big projects like web design done properly so it should be done partly in house in consultation with outsourced professionals.

If you continue to do what you are good at while keeping essential IT staff you can save money and be safe from any terrible technology failure!