When it comes to decorating a property, it’s a very exciting time. You’ll have the freedom to paint the blank canvas of a room exactly the way you’d like it to look, making your home truly your own. When it comes to decorating, a large part of this comes down to the flooring that you choose to have for your home.
Contents
- What Rooms Suit Carpets?
- What Rooms Suit Vinyl?
- What Rooms Suit Laminate?
- What Rooms Suit Wooden Flooring?
- What Rooms Suit Tiles?
- Conclusion
Flooring is a huge part of the room’s décor, and although many people don’t realise it, it can transform the look of a room without any other changes.
Flooring is a crucial part of any home, and with lots of different styles and choices out there, it can be difficult to find the perfect one for your home. In this article, we’re going to cover different types of flooring and focus on the more common and popular ones to give you a good idea of what you can expect to choose from. We hope that this article provides you with lots of useful information and helps you make that all-important decision!
Carpets
Carpets are a very popular choice of flooring for your home and offer a wide range of benefits and disadvantages. Firstly, a carpet can come in many different materials to suit every requirement. There are primarily nylon carpets and cotton carpets, both of which are commercially available. Each of these carpets come with their own pros and cons, which we’ll highlight below.
The Feel of Carpet
Carpets feel great under your feet when you’re wearing socks or barefoot. Carpet is very susceptible to keeping warm due to the many fibres that make up the carpet, meaning you’ll not have cold feet first thing in the morning which is a bonus.
Installing Carpet
Installing carpets is best left to the professionals as it requires precise measurements and expertise to properly install the carpet. A professional will be able to easily measure the floor space and cut the carpet so that it perfectly fits the room you’re laying it in. Although it is possible to purchase the carpet and do it yourself, for a professional installation we advise that you hire the experts for the job.
Cleaning Carpets
Carpets are great, but it’s important to know that cleaning of carpets isn’t always as easy as it seems. If you’ve got pets in the house, you’ll need to be mindful that fur can get embedded into the carpet, and the typical dirt from day-to-day foot traffic will slowly get pushed into the carpet and deep into the fibres.
Hoovering is a great way to keep on top of the top layer of the carpet and keep it looking nice, however, it doesn’t always clean the carpet right down into the deeper fibres of the carpet where dirt can get pushed into. To tackle these areas, you’ll need to look into steam cleaning. Steam cleaning is a trusted cleaning method that incorporates steam and pushes this deep into your carpet to lift out the dirt, helping to give a deeper clean.
Steam cleaning can be done yourself, or you can get a professional team to do this for you. Either way, for carpets this is a must-have once a year or so.
What Rooms Suit Carpets?
Carpets are best suited to rooms that aren’t ‘wet rooms’, meaning rooms that don’t have running water in them. If there was a spill, the carpet would absorb the liquid with ease and make it very difficult to clean so for that reason, it’s best to avoid carpets in rooms such as bathrooms or kitchens. Any other room, for examples a living room, bedroom, hallway or any other room for that matter, will suit carpets nicely.
Vinyl Flooring
Vinyl flooring is made up of PVC that’s designed to be flexible and laid out on your floor. It’s water-resistant, meaning if you have a spill on vinyl you can just mop it up, making it very popular for wet rooms such as the bathroom or the kitchen.
Vinyl flooring comes in a wide range of colours and styles, giving you plenty of flexibility to choose the right style for your room. There are styles of vinyl designed to look like wooden flooring, making the design of a wooden floor affordable for many. It’s often cheaper and requires less labour to install, making it a more price-friendly option compared to other types of flooring.
The Feel of Vinyl
Vinyl can feel different for many due to the range of styles that vinyl comes in. Some vinyl has bumps to mimic the feel of wooden flooring to give an authentic feeling, and others are textured to contour to the design of the vinyl to give a 3D feel.
Aside from this, vinyl often feels cooler than the carpeted floor and has a bit of give, meaning it’s not a solid floor. This often goes unnoticed as the give it has is minimal at best, so it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker, and it does feel quite nice compared to a solid floor.
Installing Vinyl
Vinyl, similarly to a carpet, is a difficult floor to install without the right tools and expertise. Vinyl can be cut to perfectly suit the floor itself, and therefore needs precise measurements to ensure that it’s laid properly. Any miscuts can leave the floor with gaps, which don’t look appealing to look at. Unless you have the experience and the tools to effectively lay the vinyl, it’s best to leave it to the professionals.
Cleaning Vinyl
Vinyl is an exceptionally easy floor to clean. As a solid piece of vinyl, there are no risks of any cracks between the vinyl so any spills will be contained on the floor without risk of sinking through. You’ll just need to wipe up the spills and that’s that!
Using a dustpan and brush you’ll be able to collect any dirt from the floor easily, keeping the floor clean. Once done, a simple floor cleaner and a mop will do the job and get the floor looking like new. There isn’t any need for a complicated cleaning process, making it a very popular choice for many homeowners.
What Rooms Suit Vinyl?
Vinyl suits every type of room. Its water-resistant properties, paired with the limitless designs available give the flexibility to use vinyl in any room, no matter whether it’s a wet room or not.
Many homes choose to have vinyl in their kitchen and bathroom(s) as they are extremely easy to clean and maintain and then choose other types of flooring around the home. Due to the design versatility, you’ll be able to keep a running theme throughout the house with vinyl and other types of flooring, allowing you to get your dream home without any compromisation on the flooring.
Laminate Flooring
Laminate flooring is another popular type of flooring for many homes. Laminate uses lots of planks of MDF, allowing you to get the design of your home that you’re looking to achieve without the high price of actual wooden flooring.
Laminate comes with a design printed on the tip to resemble wooden plants, allowing you to get the design that you’d like. Wooden flooring is very popular for many, but due to the high cost and the maintenance costs, many people turn to laminate to get the flooring they’re after.
The Feel of Laminate
Laminate flooring is often designed to feel like the wooden design that it’s portraying. Raised bumps can give a subtle, but realistic feel to the wooden style that many laminate designs aim to achieve.
On the floor, laminate feels very solid under your feet. You can expect there to be no give as you’re walking around, resembling a natural wooden floor. Because of this, the floor often remains quite cold on your feet so it’s important to wear socks if it’s a cold day and you’re going to be walking around the house.
Installing Laminate
To install laminate, similarly to any flooring, you need the right expertise and knowledge to make it happen. Although laminate is often a DIY project, you do need some specialist tools to ensure you’re cutting the laminate safely and sharply. If the laminate planks are cut roughly, they may not fit together properly and therefore won’t sit flat.
There are many detailed guides out there that talk through the requirements to effectively lay laminate, so if you are looking to give this a go yourself it’s definitely something that you can achieve. However, if you’d prefer to leave it to the professionals, there are many out there that will be able to help you get the laminate laid for you.
Cleaning Laminate
Laminate is a hard floor, meaning it’s easy to clean if there is a spill. You can use standard flooring cleaners to clean them, but it’s important to be aware that laminate should never be wet. Due to the very minor gaps between each plank, there is the risk that liquids can spill through. For this reason, if there is a spill, it’s important to get this cleaned as soon as possible.
You’ll be able to use a spray-on floor cleaner to clean laminate, making it very easy to clean. This, along with a dustpan and brush will remove and dirt from the floor and leave the laminate looking like new.
What Rooms Suit Laminate?
If you’re looking to get laminate for your home, it’s important to check the instructions that come with the laminate. Different manufacturers will have different recommendations for the rooms that can have laminate flooring in, so it’s worth checking these to be sure.
As a rule of thumb, as the laminate can let liquid slip between the gaps, laminate shouldn’t be used for wet rooms such as a bathroom or a kitchen. Although some manufacturers will say that the laminate is safe, it’s always good to be on the safe side.
All other rooms of the house are viable to have laminate in, and most look fantastic with laminate flooring. If you’re a fan of a wooden floor, but you’re keen to avoid the maintenance and the high costs, laminate flooring is a fantastic choice for you.
Wooden Flooring
Wooden flooring uses real wooden planks for your floor, giving an authentic look and feel for your home. Wooden flooring can look fantastic if installed correctly, however, some maintenance requirements make wooden flooring unappealing to some households. On top of this, the high cost of wood makes it out of reach for many, so it’s important to bear this in mind.
The Feel of Wooden Flooring
Wooden flooring feels fantastic, and there’s nothing quite like it. The bumps and texture of wood feel very natural and can transform the way you feel about the room you’re walking in, especially if you have high heeled shoes. You’ll get that authentic heel click sound as you walk, which presents a feeling of luxury to those walking through the room.
Installing Wooden Flooring
Installing wooden flooring is arguably one of the most difficult types of flooring to install. The wooden planks need to be cut into place and placed very carefully to ensure they sit in the location that they should. If they aren’t placed where they need to be, this can cause problems and a potentially unfinished look to the room.
For a wooden floor, people train for years to build up the expertise and the knowledge to effectively lay a wooden floor. We recommend that if you are looking to get a wooden floor installed in your home, that you hire professionals with expertise in doing so. They’ll be able to provide you with exceptional advice and help you to get the floor laid perfectly, which is vital when considering the higher costs.
Cleaning Wooden Flooring
Wooden flooring requires higher maintenance than all other floors, making it one of the highest maintenance floors available. You can mop a wooden floor with the right cleaning products, but it’s important to know that with the wrong cleaning equipment, it can damage the floor.
Wooden flooring is very susceptible to staining, which means you’ll need to use special indoor wooden flooring stain every couple of years to keep the wood protected and looking at its best. If you spill anything such as oil or something like this, you could risk the damage of permanently leaving a stain on the floor, so always be careful!
You can also hoover a wooden floor but do make sure that your hoover is hardwood friendly, as it could leave scratches if not. Again, always check the manufacturer’s instructions to be on the safe side.
What Rooms Suit Wooden Flooring?
Wooden flooring looks best in rooms that often see guests, for example in a reception room or a hallway. Wooden flooring, with its high amount of maintenance, is often kept to only these rooms as to impress guests and provide a warm welcome to the home, but not in all rooms of the house. This helps to keep the maintenance requirements lower, whilst providing a fantastic looking floor.
Tiled Flooring
Tiled flooring is a long-lasting flooring type, and has a very unique feel compared to other types of flooring. Tiled flooring includes specific tiles being laid on the floor to provide the flooring, with a sealant surrounding them to ensure that it’s watertight.
Tiles are becoming less popular compared to previous decades but still prove to be a unique and great floor for many homes. Although they are more expensive, people often choose tiles for their reliability and professional finish. Tiles can look very good once installed correctly, so if you are considering a tiled floor then it’s worth spending some time to understand the theme of the room and the colours you’re looking to go for.
The Feel of Tiles
The first thing you’ll notice with tiles, especially if you’re wearing socks or you’re walking with bare feet, is that they can get really cold. Tiles are often made of stone or another very hard material that doesn’t conduct heat very easily, therefore it’s important to bear this in mind. However, the cold feeling can easily be offset with some slippers or some thick socks.
The tiles are often reported to be very hard, harder than most other flooring types. They have no give at all, it’s like walking on concrete with tiles. This is a great feeling though, as it feels very secure and reliable for your home, making it a popular choice for many homeowners.
Installing Tiles
Tiles require a very specific and rigorous installation process, which makes them difficult to lay. You’ll first need to lay out exactly where the tiles are going to sit and use something known as grout to help the tiles ‘stick’. Grout is what sits in between the tiles and helps them to keep apart, whilst being water-resistant.
The process then requires a very careful approach to lay each tile, ensure it’s laid flat into the adhesive and then to place grout in between the tiles. If you’re at a loose end and you can’t get a tile to fit in the gap, you’ll need to cut the tile, which requires special tools to safely cut the tile.
Although it is possible to tile them yourself, the process does require a lot of steps and a lot of time to complete. There are lots of excellent instructions out there that talk through the tiling of a floor, so do be sure to follow one if you’re not sure. If you’d rather a professional come and do the job, there are many out there that’ll help.
Cleaning Tiles
Tiles are exceptionally easy to clean. You can use simple floor spray and use a dustpan and brush to keep the tiles clean and remove any spills on the tiles. Because tiles are made from very hard materials, such as stone, you can be very rigorous on them without worrying about causing any damage. You’ll just need to be careful that you don’t cause any scratches, especially not to any that are shiny.
What Rooms Suit Tiles?
Tiles are best suited to wet rooms, such as bathrooms and kitchens. Because of their resistance to water, they’re best suited to these rooms to provide a sturdy and safe flooring from any water.
Some homes have a ‘wet room’, where the floor is designed with a drain for any showering needs. This means that there is no shower basin, and the flooring is the base of the shower, angled to help drain water down to the drain. These rooms are often tiled, showing the reliability of times when it comes to water.
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve discussed all the different types of flooring that are commonly used in a home and given some information that we hope will help you to make the right choice. We’ve specifically covered:
- What the flooring is
- How the flooring feels
- How to install the flooring
- How to clean the flooring
- Which rooms are best suited to the flooring.
If you’re considering a new type of flooring for your home, this article will give you plenty of information to help you make an informed decision based on the maintenance requirements and functionality of the flooring.
We hope this comes in useful and we hope that you get the perfect flooring for your home!
