Repurposed Leather Belt Flooring

Posted on January 9, 2009 by Doug Gunzelmann in Home+Decor

Ting London knows how to use belts! Artists and designers are powerful forces towards innovative and sustainable concepts and founder Inghua Ting has created a ballin’ set of products with this in mind.

This small London outfit uses sustainable practices and reclaimed materials (much of which is belts of all sorts, from leather to seatbelt) to create personal effects and even modular flooring. Ting is a graduate of the Royal College of Art and works to fashion luxurious products from less than luxurious raw materials. Don’t be fooled though, the end products are gorgeous.

Flooring from recycled materials can add so much character, save money, and still be extremely durable. This mosaic flooring we featured awhile back shows the uniqueness piecing together odds and ends can create. Likewise, in the pictures of Ting’’s belt floor you can see the detail in the belts’ various relief decoration and the punched holes.

The vintage belts are personally selected and carefully arranged to style these unique, high quality accessories so that no two bags are the same. These striking and robust deluxe accessories are lined with bright vintage fabrics, tie silks and corduroys and have belt buckle fastenings.

The modular flooring uses recycled leather waist belts that are completely unique. At around 75$ a sq foot the end results is breathtaking. The belts are cut and arranged onto a leather backing and glued with a water based adhesive. The deep rich tones have the appeal of fine wood and a character that is unbeatable.

Sources: Haute Nature, Ting London

Tags:

decor, reclaimed material, repurposed

26 Responses to “ Repurposed Leather Belt Flooring ”

Extreme Funny

09. Jan, 2009

nice designs

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Adam Shake

10. Jan, 2009

I would love to do this, and I have the perfect room for it. Maybe put out a call out on craigs list for leather belts.

What an a cool idea. Thanks!

Keep up the good fight and Alter the Eco dude!

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Gene

10. Jan, 2009

How does this product wear? How do you clean it? Does the stain it takes to make the product come up? I love how it looks but does the labor intensive nature offset feasibility for larger rooms?

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Diane

10. Jan, 2009

A fabulous idea - it looks very nice! I can imagine it’d be nice to walk on! How long to collect all those belts though?

I had a crazy idea about flooring a bathroom with pennies and then varnishing them over.I worked out how much it’d cost though, and then there’s be the decision of whether to get shiny new pennies or old ones of different colours. In the end I didn’t do it, but I wished I had! The ultimate flooring for a room in which you spend a penny!

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Matt Embrey

10. Jan, 2009

@Gene - Great questions. I’ll see if I can dig up some answers.

@Diane - That would be a very cool idea. How much did you figure it would end up costing? How bigs your bathroom?

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jamidwyer

10. Jan, 2009

as creativity, this is fine, interesting even. as ecology, i’m not so sure. re-purposing is not always the greenest use for a thing. i mean, what happened to all the buckles? is it really sustainable, or is it just taking all the inoffensive belts out of the thrift shops so poor people (like me!) are left with the 5-inch-wide solid gold sequin numbers they always seem to have? there’s a place for sequins, too, but why not re-use nice blacks belts as, well, belts for people who need belts?

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Matt

10. Jan, 2009

@jamidwyer

Good points. The most sustainable option would be to use all belts that were rescued from the landfill, but in most cases that is not likely to happen. Creative re-purposing of anything definitely runs the risk of taking those items out of circulation as they were originally intended.

The value here lies in the creativity. Projects like these inspire people and get them talking and thinking about the idea of reuse. It also encourages people to think outside the box about there possessions. Ultimately, if this inspired everyone to scour thrift shops for nice looking belts to use as flooring, then the end result would probably be negative. I think it is more likely that what people will take away from this is the idea that they don’t have to go to home depot and order pirgo flooring, that by being creative they can reuse something that’s already been made and get a floor with more character.

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Matt

10. Jan, 2009

@jamidwyer

I forgot to mention, here’s an interesting article about something that could threaten thrift shops: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-thrift2-2009jan02,0,2083247.story

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Bill Dongo

10. Jan, 2009

I love how recycled products like these always cost quadruple the norm. How is someone with a modest 1000 sf home going to drop 75K on re-flooring their home with belts? It’s just not an option. Not realistic. The only people who could afford these floors would probably never buy them bc they seem “low quality”

Nice idea. But not practical.

P.S. Those of you interested in using this flooring, forget about using them in the kitchen or bathroom. Leather+water= not so cool.

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Melissa

11. Jan, 2009

Except leather belts with no grommets fall apart when you wear them…

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Roona99

11. Jan, 2009

fantastic! Good to see a bit of creativity and recycling!

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coolerchoice

12. Jan, 2009

nice design nice idea

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a person who hates this idea

13. Jan, 2009

uhhh….this looks cool, but is NOT CHEAP IN ANY WAY, it says in the text that it is cheap….if 75 dollars a square foot is cheap then what is this world coming to???…..anyway you could buy a beautiful floor that could take all the beating you throw at it, it would last a LONG time, for around 10 dollars a square foot, clearly a better deal, old used belts, or beautiful flooring…I would choose beautiful high quality flooring.

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Doug Gunzelmann

13. Jan, 2009

@ A person who hates this idea

Recycled flooring can be cheap, check out the post linked to in that particular sentence.

Personally I find this flooring gorgeous, I understand that’s a subjective point.

The price reflects a hand crafted, unique piece of work. Not suitable perhaps for everyone’s needs, but arguably worth its cost none the less.

I am unaware of this floor’s lack of durability. That’s a point I check in with the manufacturer about.

As far as other value added by this project see some of Matt’s comments above, he makes some good points.

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calico

18. Jan, 2009

stupid idea:

take belts and glue them onto LEATHER, presumably new leather. Leather is one of the most un-sustainable products to use on a floor. Who thought this one up?

I would not consider it green.

Its not affordable.

What’s the point??? There are already good uses for old industrial belts such using as-is as horse stall liners.

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calico

18. Jan, 2009

Edited to follow up: I just noticed the belts are leather, not rubber. My bad.

So it is a good re-use of old clothes belts. But how can it be durable, and I still object to them using new leather as backing.

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beth

19. Jan, 2009

WOW- they are so nice, and really well priced.

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Gabriel Gadfly

28. Feb, 2009

This would look really good in something like a reading study.

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