it was a toss-up between bamboo and rubber, and I have plumped for the latter.

Rubber was my missus’ suggestion, and since she is generally right about things I did very little research. During the small amount of reading I did though, it did not take long to find people with critical things to say: you need years experience to lay it properly; if you don’t seal and polish it the disaster will result etc etc. Is any of this true? There is only one way to find out for sure…

I think I got a good deal – £32 per meter from the clearance section at Kimpton Flooring who had a left over bit exactly the size I needed (11m2). Unusually the tiles (“kimstud”) are 1000x1000mm (most I looked at were 500x500mm) and are made in Italy from 4mm synthetic rubber. The very helpful chap at Kimpton’s chucked in a free adhesive trowel.

The closest I saw in price was over £40p2m and that was for 2.7mm thick tiles. Is there any advantage to having thicker tiles? Why is rubber so expensive? Who knows…

The color is green – I would have preferred brown or grey, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Apparently it is very important to get the floor completely level so I have some 9mm ply on order to create a base.

I shall report back on how I get on