Although I have been growing bamboo plants for years, I never imagined that you could do anything useful with them. I guess I was pretty ignorant of it. They had seemed to be simple, decorative plants. Don't get me wrong – there are a few tricks that they are good for. You could, for example, use them for your vines to grow up once you pick them, twist them into novel shapes, and give them as presents. That was about all the bamboo plant was good for my opinion. I certainly didn't know about bamboo floors.

I stumbled onto bamboo hardwood floors while I was restoring my house. Sometimes, kitchen remodeling work is pretty stressful, and it is even more so when you are trying to save money. We are not poor by any means, but one of the ways that we stay well off is by not spending excess money when we don't have to. Most of the wooden floorboards seem to be more expensive than I wanted to pay. They were pretty good, but none of them were great. The really beautiful woods were out of my price range, and who wants to install a wood floor they don't really like?

I came across bamboo floors accidentally. I was going over to a friend's house – a new friend from work. He had just redone his house as well, and was anxious to show off the job he had done. Although he was more interested in telling me about the mantelpiece, the paint job, and a new deck, I couldn't get enough of his bamboo floors. They were awesome, and when he told me what they were, I was even more amazed. When he told me how affordable bamboo floors are, that clinched the deal!

Nowadays, bamboo has become one of my favorite building materials. Not only do I have bamboo floor, but I also have bamboo blinds. It is versatile, cheap, and extremely strong. It also has a very nice, deep color to it. Best of all, it seems to wear very well. Although bamboo can splinter when it is stressed along the grain, when you use it in the right way it tends to be extremely durable. It can be a bit more trouble to work with than some of the more popular woods, so you should consider having an expert install it instead of doing it all by yourself. Other than that, have fun with it. It is guaranteed to be as good as a building material as it is as a decoration.