My secret love of laminate

Well, it is no longer actually a mystery. Done nicely, laminates are an crucial and too-effortlessly-unnoticed option on the subject of protecting surfaces. At least they're easily unnoticed in homes. Every time you walk right into a Starbuck's, or a Panera, or a Gap or another keep or chain restaurant you could consider, you're surrounded by using them.

Laminate was invented by means of engineers at the Westinghouse Corporation in 1912. Back then, the mineral mica turned into used as an electric insulator. Daniel O'Connor and Herbert Faber set out to invent a alternative cloth for mica. They found out a way to impregnate layers of kraft paper with melamine resins after which treatment it beneath heat and pressure. Since they had invented a alternative for mica, they known as their invention Formica. O'Connor and Herbert left Westinghouse and formed the Formica Company in 1913. Their product discovered great use as a counter floor and that they quite a great deal owned the surfaces global till DuPont rolled Corian in 1967.

I can't remember the last time I put a laminate counter in someone's home, but it's not anything I'd reject out of hand. Laminate has a place in both homes and in commercial spaces, but that place is best served when laminates are allowed to be laminates. The secret to their versatility is on how they're made. Laminates are still made from layers of kraft paper, but the top layer can be any image someone can imagine. If someone can reproduce a pattern, it can end up as a sheet of laminate.

I've used it for wall cladding, for ceiling tiles, as cabinet inserts, you name it. But the kinds of laminate patterns that interest me aren't hanging on a chip rack at Lowe's. My interest in laminate surfaces is around three years old. Three years ago, a rep walked into my office with a sample book from Arpa, an Italian laminate manufacturer.

In that sample book were some of the wildest patterns I'd ever seen. I swear, I went out and found reasons to use some of their stuff. Here's some of what I saw in that pattern book. Careful though, you'll never be the same after you see these.