You find yourself thumbing through award-winning home catalogs, gawking at the beautiful bamboo flooring glistening in the photos.
Fast forward a few hours, and you are now giving up your precious credit card number, in the hopes to have one of those photo ready homes. Was Morning Star Bamboo the right choice?
With the plenty of unique options, the Morning Star Bamboo flooring is sure to catch your eye.
But we all know, the worst part of remodeling a home is making mistakes. Whether it’s wasting money, or picking something with constant issues, we all want to be confident that our purchase is the best option.
HGTV makes these beautiful home remodels look easier than they are. I’m here to help you sort between the good and evil of the home remodeling confusion. In this article, I will be reviewing Morning Star Bamboo. Here are some things you can expect to read about:
- The Good and the Evil of Bamboo
- Is Morning Star really the Star?
- Lumber Liquidators Purchasing Reviews
- Do it Yourself or Do Yourself a Favor and Don’t?
- The Final Verdict
Pros and Cons of Bamboo
After designing my mother’s home, she decided to have bamboo flooring installed after researching the pros and cons. After having it in our home for ten years, here are some of the pros and cons that we discovered after living with the flooring.
- Bamboo is a soft wood.
- Bamboo requires more specialty care.
- The flooring provides a unique look.
- It is an eco-friendly flooring choice
In our home, the specialty care did not have a huge impact, once we learned the best method for upkeep. The softness of the wood was the biggest con overall.
I still remember the fight when my brother dropped a screwdriver on the floor, and it left a pretty x on the floor for my mother to look at every day. The wood is soft, and susceptible to denting, no matter how much the website raves of the hardness of the wood. However, it isn’t something to actively worry about day to day.
Besides those two drawbacks the flooring is a great choice. My mom loved how unique it was to other wood flooring options, and I loved the eco-friendly aspect of the bamboo.
All in all, both my mother and I would choose to install bamboo flooring again. However, after researching Morning Star Bamboo, I would do a lot of research into which company you purchase it from.
Morning Star or Bust?
Bamboo itself does not seem to be the issue with the Morning Star brand. As mentioned before, the flooring does have its shortcomings.
Yes, you are getting a softer wood that may require more specialty care; however, splitting and separating of the flooring is never acceptable, especially not with a flooring that is as expensive as Morning Star’s.
After spending hours on the internet, my initial overview of the product was that it is generally not as budget-friendly than some of the other click together bamboo competitors. With that, I expected to read about a higher quality product.
It seems that this product looks better than it is to the untrained eye, but digging a little deeper it had many pitfalls.
The flooring offers a 30-year warranty, which has now had a light shined on it by the legal sector. With a class action lawsuit against Lumber Liquidators, the claims on the products website of the flooring being, “extremely durable” and “free of defects” are being called into question.
According to reviews, many people had issues with the product in the first year, sometimes even while installing the product. When being installed by a professional the flooring would split, dent, and even separate very early on.
Is Lumber Liquidators the Culprit?
After reading the thousands of reviews of Lumber Liquidators, it seems the overall trend is positive. There were some issues, as with any large-scale company. However, that did not seem to be the topic of most of the reviews.
In comparing the reviews of Lumber Liquidators to the reviews of the Morning Star Bamboo flooring, the reviews of Lumber Liquidators much exceed those of Morning Star. The Chinese-made flooring has more complaints than compliments, which leads me to believe it may be a poor investment for a new flooring option. However, I don’t think it’s Lumber Liquidators that is the bad investment.
D-I-Y or Don’t-I-Y
With the Morning Star Bamboo, and all of its issues, I would not suggest self-installation. If you do decide to go with Morning Star bamboo, I would leave the installation to the professionals.
It seems that even when done correctly, there are still major issues with the flooring. This does not seem like an easy, weekend project, even for the professionals.
If you are looking for something you can do yourself, then click-together flooring is a good choice. I installed it myself, with little knowledge of flooring, and have had no issues so far. However, this bamboo may not be the best choice for beginners.
The Verdict is In
Our opinion is that Morning Star is not worth the headache or the cost. Bamboo is a specialty flooring that does have some trade-offs for the beautiful look. However, falling apart and separating are not the expected results of any bamboo flooring product.
If you do decide to go with Morning Star I would strongly suggest having a professional install it. I do not believe the culprit is the provider.
Lumber Liquidators seems to have their array of positive and negative reviews, but the trend seems to be positive. On the contrary, when reading about Morning Star Bamboo, it was difficult to find a single positive review.
I urge you to do your own research, and if you have had an experience with Morning Star Bamboo, good or bad, let us know in the comments!
Back to Top
