It's A Grass. It's A Week. It's A Floor. -- Fast-Growing Bamboo Goes Easy On The Conscience, But Will It Hold Up Over Time?

It's used as a hardwood floor, but it's not really wood. It's classified as a grass, but sure doesn't look like a lawn. It's bamboo flooring, and it's starting to show up in the houses of people who like its look, feel and the fact that it comes not from a tree, but from a fast-growing plant.

"We love the floor," said Molly LaPatra of Seattle, whose 1 1/2-year-old house is serving as a kind of test and demonstration home for bamboo floors locally.

The LaPatra's floor is among those featured on the Web site of TimberGrass, a 2-year-old Bainbridge Island company that is seeing its bamboo floors installed in houses and shops, including the Gene Juarez Spa and Salon in downtown Seattle and Southcenter and the Tommy Hilfiger department at Bloomingdale's in New York. The Web address is: www.timbergrass.com

In the LaPatra house, bamboo covers the main floor, from the kitchen to the fireplace, the stairs and an upstairs office.

"It does show scratches and dings," said Molly's husband, Bill LaPatra. "But I still think it's stronger than oak and maple. It's very beautiful."

The LaPatras are both architects and designed their four-bedroom house perched on the west side of Seattle's Phinney Ridge. They have three young children and one large dog - a challenge for any flooring.

The LaPatras say the color, a light blond similar to maple, seems to be fading a bit and there are signs that the laminated strips are slightly "cupping" - the edges rising - in places. Since there is little history of bamboo floors in this country, he also wonders if it will hold up well over time.

TimberGrass floors have a 10-year warranty, said founder and chief executive Steen Ostenson.

The cupping at the LaPatra's may be difficult for a visitor to see. It may be due to the usual expansion a natural floor can experience during summer, when the indoor humidity is generally higher, according to Thomas Dorian, a project manager of Oak Floors of Greenbank, a company that specializes in selling hardwood floors and for the past two years, bamboo. Dorian said laminated bamboo floors have been around the United States for about 10 years and probably not much longer in China. When asked about its long-term durability, he said, "We can't really say. But it's really durable now."

Overall, the LaPatras are happy with the floor and the "seamless" look of the grain and say the fading may be because they used a water-based finish plus their large windows let in plenty of sunlight. An oil-based Swedish finish may have given them a darker color, Molly LaPatra said, but what sold them on the water-based product is that it is nontoxic and could be used for touch-ups.

"It's more environmentally friendly, like the material we chose for the floor," she said.

Bamboo is selling well and attracting a lot of attention, said Dorian. "A lot of people are intrigued by it. They say `What is that?'."

Greenbank stocks bamboo flooring from TimberGrass, one of about a dozen companies in this country selling bamboo flooring. But Ostenson said his company is the only one that actually makes the floors here. TimberGrass turns bamboo boards from China into flooring at a mill in Lake Stevens, near Everett.

The bamboo used is called maotzu. It is grown on a plantation where in four to six years it reaches heights of about 80 feet with a trunk, or culm, of about 6 inches in diameter. After harvest, the bamboo is taken to a plant in China where it is cut into half-inch strips that are laminated together in vertical or horizontal grain boards that are 6 feet 2 inches long.

The boards are shipped to the plant in Lake Stevens where they are milled into tongue-and-groove flooring. Colors range from blond to dark amber.

Bamboo appeals to people who want to take pressure off the domestic hardwood forest, much of which is in Indiana and Kentucky. The quality of some hardwood has declined because it is from second-growth trees cut younger than the first generation or old-growth forest.

But bamboo can't be promoted as a cheap flooring alternative. Its cost is comparable to that of top-grade oak floors - about $6 a square foot, according to Dorian. Installed and finished, that can run up to $11 a square foot.

Dorian said hardwood floors range in price from 99 cents a square foot for "cabin grade" wood characterized by mismatched pieces, knots and mineral streaks, to $6.50 a square foot for high-end oak.

Sales at TimberGrass have doubled in the past six months, said Vice President Ann Knight. And judging by the interest shown at last weekend's Seattle Home Show 2, more bamboo floors are on the way.

On a relatively uncrowded Friday morning, when many booths were empty except for an employee or two, a small crowd was gathered around the TimberGrass booth, staffed by Ostenson and two employees.

Linda Creech, who lives near Port Orchard, said she was thinking of replacing her water-damaged oak floor with bamboo and had been reading up on it.

"I think the bamboo would hold up better," she said. When asked if she was interested in it because it didn't come from trees, she replied: "That's nice too. Bamboo is like a weed."

Bill Kossen's phone message number is 206-464-2331. His e-mail address is: bkossen@seattletimes.com