What is the best flooring for art galleries?

Choosing the right flooring for your art studio is a major decision. We all want our studios to be as functional and fuss-free as possible—the right flooring choice can make your studio time a pleasure, but the wrong choice can have long-lasting consequences that will affect your comfort and your wallet.

When my husband and I decided to build a freestanding art studio on our property we knew much of the interior work would need to be done by us if we were to stay within our very modest budget.

We had gained considerable DIY experience rehabbing our 1970’s era house, so we were confident we could finish the interior of a 220 square foot studio by painting the walls, laying flooring, and installing all the hardware and trimwork ourselves. (We did leave specialized tasks like electrical work to licensed pros.)

But early on I knew I needed to make a choice. . .

What kind of flooring was best for my art studio?

I’m a painter and jewelry artist. My preferred medium is acrylic, so I use lots of water. And I’m messy, so moisture resistance and ease of cleanup topped my list of criteria in selecting flooring for my studio. And of course, it needed to be affordable.

The number of flooring options on the market today are overwhelming. There’s tile (both porcelain and ceramic), hardwood, engineered wood, wood laminate, composite flooring, cork, and vinyl, just to name some of the more popular types.

Each has its own pros and cons, but after much discussion with my husband, lots of online research, and several scouting trips to flooring stores to gain an overview of what was available, I was finally ready to make my choice.

I used a spreadsheet to record the advantages and disadvantages for each type of flooring, its price per square foot, and where it could be purchased. The spreadsheet made navigating my way through so many options much easier.

And as you might imagine, I learned a lot! Here are my top flooring tips, gleaned from my own experience—hopefully you can use them as well!

6 tips for choosing your art studio flooring

1. Choose water resistant flooring

If you’re using liquids of any kind, inevitably there will be spills. You want flooring that’s easy to clean and doesn’t stain. In particular, vinyl flooring and ceramic and porcelain tile are good choices.

Some manufacturers of wood laminate now claim their products are water resistant. Since laminate swells if water infiltrates the seams between planks, I recommend you buy a sample and test this claim for yourself before investing in a roomful of it.

(On the other hand, if you’re a fiber artist or weaver who doesn’t need water to create what you do, water resistance isn’t likely to rank high on your priority list.)

A word of caution here – avoid carpeting no matter what kind of work you produce. It’s impossible to clean when paint or solvents get spilled on it, it requires vacuuming which raises dust (bad for lungs and wet paint) and if you accidentally drop beads, pins, tiny components or any other small objects on it, you may as well be searching in the Bermuda Triangle.

2. Pick a flooring you can install yourself

Vinyl self stick tiles and laminate planks that snap together are ideal for DIYers. Floating sheet vinyl flooring is also easy to install. You simply cut it with a carpet knife or craft knife to fit the room’s shape. It needs no glue to stay put.

On the other hand, a 12 foot wide roll of it can be extremely heavy, depending on the size of the space it’s going to cover. If you choose sheet vinyl be prepared to apply plenty of muscle to get it into your studio.

3. Don’t choose a floor that you’ll love TOO much

Hardwood flooring is beautiful and quite popular in gallery settings, but its beauty can inhibit you from flinging paints with abandon, or attempting anything messy for fear of marring its good looks. This type of flooring is best left out of spaces where you work unless you’re willing to protect it with drop cloths.

The same goes for any type of flooring you fall in love with. . . if it’s too precious, your work may suffer!

4. Consider all the uses of your art studio

Do you hold studio open houses or other social events in your art studio? Some flooring can be permanently damaged by stiletto heels, so if you hold social gatherings it’s important to raise this issue in discussions with flooring suppliers. Some flooring withstands impact from high heels, others do not.

Consider also whether the flooring becomes slippery when it gets wet – for example, on rainy days. If you teach workshops or classes in your studio you’ll want to avoid hard, slick surfaces to minimize the possibility of falls as students track in water.

5. Be willing to scrounge!

I’m not suggesting that you dumpster dive (though I’ve heard of artists who’ve scored boxes of ceramic tiles and rolls of perfectly useable sheet vinyl in those grubby depths). No, by “scrounging” I just mean keeping an eye out for what you want on websites like Craigslist, FreeCycle, or Facebook Marketplace.

These sites routinely feature home improvement products offered for free or very cheap. A quick check on Craigslist as I wrote this uncovered 60 pieces of interlocking plastic flooring free for the taking, and brand new composite flooring at just $1.89 per square foot.

Don’t overlook Habitat for Humanity ReStores, either, which frequently receive donations of home improvement overstocks from big box retailers. One Habitat ReStore I visited had dozens of boxes of DIY self stick vinyl tiles—enough to cover several hundred square feet—for just a few dollars per box.

Bargains like these can be found without too much difficulty, it’s just a matter of knowing where to look, and checking back often. If you’re not too picky you can acquire new studio flooring for a song.

6. Choose a light floor if at all possible

Almost every art studio can benefit from having more light. If your studio has small windows, no windows, sits in a shady location, or just lacks a lot of interior lighting, your flooring can help!

A light color on the floor will reflect and amplify whatever light does reach the studio, whereas a dark floor will absorb light and can make a studio feel gloomy. White, ivory, or pale beige flooring can make a small studio appear much more spacious, a plus for artists who must work in cramped quarters.

Bottom line—when you’re choosing flooring, list your priorities based on your needs and the type of work you do. Know what you’re willing to give up if necessary, and what’s a must-have. And if you’re not averse to them, a spreadsheet really can make it a lot easier to decide!

So what flooring did I pick for my own studio?

I chose extra thick loose lay sheet vinyl from a big box retailer. It’s light beige with a subtle “flagstone” pattern, a nice smooth surface that makes cleanup easy, and—when it was purchased back in 2011—it was reasonably price at $1.25/sq ft.

Since then it has been subjected to paint spills, spray varnish, abrasions, nose diving x-acto knives and more. . . and it still looks great (when I bother to clean it).

The extra thickness makes long hours standing at my work table more comfortable, and when I drop beads on it they’re easy to find. Plus, if we ever decide to move, it can be rolled up and go with us!

Special thanks to Lynn Edwards for sharing this post! To learn more about Lynn or her art, please visit her website at www.lynnedwardsart.com

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Resin floors are an important, though often unnoticed element of the interior design of many leisure facilities, from shops to restaurants and hotels to museums. Durable resin flooring effectively helps to protect the substrate of a floor from damage, and in commercial spaces such as museums, protecting the floor reduces the chance or floor failure, which could pose a risk to visitors, as well as an expense to the museum itself.

Aside from keeping visitors safe, a durable resin flooring system also helps to protect the substrate from abuse of daily footfall, as well as the weight and movement of weighty exhibits. In addition to excellent parameters in terms of mechanical strength and durability, resin floors have one more important advantage for museum space; they offer wide range of design possibilities by allowing free reign for creating almost any visual effects.

Below are three examples of how resin flooring has been used to great effect in exhibition facilities.

Plain and Simple

The seamless nature of resin flooring allows a smooth, homogenous surface to be created in facilities. Often, the only visible divisions are those resulting from subdivisions underneath the coating. This smooth surface lends itself well to colour or high gloss finishes, which can easily be achieved using epoxy resin.

Glossy floor coatings in neutral shades can work wonders for helping to highlight exhibitions in museum spaces.

A neutral colour that highlights the changing displays will act as a solid base for years. This solution was used, among others, at the Depot History Centre in Wrocław, Poland, where a floor incorporating a clear resin and coloured sand in grey was selected. With high durability and abrasion resistance, this style of flooring is often used in areas similar to this where high footfall is expected, and even in store rooms where exhibition pieces are stored.

In the Limelight

In contrast to being used as a neutral backdrop, more and more museum spaces are designed in a holistic way with floors being an important, and in many cases central, part of the exhibition itself.

In cases like this, the visitor’s sight can be directed at their feet, where the flooring is used as an attractive element and often a carrier of information. Such solutions are used in thematic museums in rooms with a permanent exhibition, where the arrangement remains unchanged for years. In the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, Poland, self–smoothing resin flooring was applied, in a matte finish, with embedded posters and graphics depicting maps and literature from the 1940s.

The First Impression

Museum entrance-ways have the important role of being both a welcoming space for visitors and encapsulating the content of the resident exhibition at the same time. With first impressions being so important, this space needs to entice visitors inside, whilst being adaptable enough to change depending on new features or exhibitions.

Here, decorative flooring can work very well to add a touch of glamour to the interior. A high quality terrazzo flooring system can be ideal here thanks to the variety of colour options and mix of aggregates. The surface of terrazzo often has a subtle shine and resembles polished stone. Floors of this type can be found, among others in the London Victoria and Albert Museum. A similar effect was obtained at the Broad Art Museum at the University of Michigan, where a polished concrete floor was made using special aggregates.

The choice of resin floors in museums largely depends on the desired visual effect as well as the suitability to the exhibitions and the anticipated use of the floor. If you would like any more information on suitable flooring solutions, please leave a comment below and we will get right back to you.

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Agnieszka Bak

Agnieszka is an architectural expert at Flowcrete Polska, which is a leading resin flooring manufacturer based in Warsaw, Poland.