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A New Floor Plan

If you can make one big change in your home, look to your floors. This is where tracked-in dirt, chemicals, contaminants and pesticide residues settle. While laying wall-to-wall carpet may seem like a warm and nurturing choice, it’s actually the worst thing you can do for your home.

Even 19th-century homemakers understood the drawbacks of carpet. “Carpets in daily use cannot be kept clean … and they do much toward corrupting the air by retaining impure gases, hiding the finest, most penetrating dust in their meshes and underneath them, and by giving off particles of fine wool into the atmosphere, with the other dust, as they are swept or walked upon,” stated the housekeeping manual Household Conveniences and How to Make Them, published in 1884. And that was well before the advent of 4-phenylcyclohexene (4-PC), the nasty chemical responsible for today’s “new carpet smell.”

Instead of carpet, consider these beautiful, healthy alternatives.

Cork: Made from the bark of cork oak trees, cork flooring is available in a variety of colors. Use cork tiles rather than cork plank flooring, which contains a layer of fiberboard and adhesives that contain chemicals. For the healthiest finish, use carnauba wax.

Natural Linoleum: Made from linseed oil, pine resins, wood and cork powders, and natural pigments on a jute backing, true linoleum (not the vinyl flooring that became known generically as “linoleum”) is naturally antimicrobial and doesn’t shed microfibers, making it a good choice for people with allergies.

Natural Fibers: Sisal, derived from the agave plant, is one of the strongest fibers available. Coir (pronounce coy-er), made from coconut husks, and jute, made from the fibers found just below the bark of a jute plant, are also very durable. None of these fibers require chemicals for production or maintenance.

Tile: Durable and water-resistant, tile is inert and won’t offgas, although the grout used between tiles might. Have tile installed with cement-based thinset rather than mastic, which has chemicals.

Hardwood: Good old-fashioned hardwood floors have shown the test of time, and for healthy homes, they’re still the best. Make sure you refinish yours with water-based finishes rather than chemical-laden polyurethanes.