Screened Porch Flooring for Incontinent Cat

Q: We have an incontinent cat who is presently confined to one room of our house which is covered with incontinence pads. We would like to give her more area to be in with some “outside” space, so are planning to build a screened porch but I’m having a hard time coming up with an appropriate flooring option. Obviously it needs to be easy to clean and not porous so it won’t absorb odors. The existing space outside has no concrete pad; there are some concrete tiles divided by small rocks as “mortar”. I’m sure this needs removing, but under this is just dirt.
Thanks,
Deborah
A: Your best bet here is going to be either a form of tile or some type of stone flooring such as patterned concrete or natural stone like slate or granite. Unfortunately with any type of wooden flooring or carpet the moisture problems will happen in an outdoor situation and with your cat’s problem. Stone or tile on the other hand is essentially impervious to moisture. Also, this gives you a wide array of appearances you can look into from natural stone to ceramic tile or to some of the very interesting effects done recently in patterned concrete.
Another alternative you can look into would be products like Mannington’s iCORE. iCORE is made from a plastic composite instead of wood. This means it is impervious to moisture while still having the wood floor appearance of a laminate.
When constructing your room, you will want to ensure you build a proper subfloor, concrete being a good choice here. After you have built the subfloor/foundation of the room and its exterior walls, you can then finish it and install the flooring.