Choosing the Right Flooring for Your Home
Types of flooring, rooms, styles and designs
Choosing the right flooring for your home is an important decision, and involves more than just its aesthetic appearance. The floor adds to the atmosphere and style of a room, and also impacts the practical nature of the space. However, it's also a part of the decor that is hardest to replace, so it needs to last as long as possible.
There are many questions you should ask yourself, because the atmosphere of the house can be completely altered by your choice of floor. And there are also some apparently minor but important factors to take into account when making your choice. For example, should each room have the same type of flooring? Are there any children or pets in the house? Is it a bright or dark house?
To avoid confusion, a useful strategy is to focus on two particular aspects: the purpose of the rooms and how bright they are. So, for example, the flooring in the living room can be more stylish and expensive than that in the bathroom, where utility and ease of cleaning are more important considerations. Similarly, dark flooring in a dimly lit house can completely ruin the atmosphere of your entire home.
It is also important to ask yourself what type of maintenance the floor requires. There's a great deal of difference between looking after parquet and resin flooring, because they each have their own particular characteristics.
So let's look at the various types of flooring available on the market, and the factors you should consider when choosing the right answer for your home.
Type of flooring:
Wood:
Wood flooring is much loved for its natural beauty, warmth and durability. It's often chosen for its unique variations in colour and grain. Parquet is warm in winter and cool in summer, because of its natural ability to conduct heat and provide insulation. It also gives a wonderful sense of harmony. However, it can be expensive and needs regular maintenance to maintain all its beauty over time.
Tiles:
Tiles are available in a wide range of materials, including ceramic, porcelain and natural stone. They are durable and easy to clean, and so suitable for rooms with high daily use such as kitchens and bathrooms. Tiles can be cold to the touch and need to be installed on a completely flat surface. To explore this in more detail: if you have a large, bright room, a beautiful marble floor could prove to be the right choice. On the other hand, if you have a country-style home, then terracotta flooring is the best option, because it is both very attractive and extremely durable. Terracotta is made from clay mixed with water, and two types of tiles are available: glazed terracotta and classic terracotta. Glazed terracotta tiles usually have an irregular surface due to variations in the way the glaze penetrates the surface, while classic terracotta tiles are an artisan product and so all slightly different, which gives them real added value. On the other hand, if you enjoy playing with colour and want to express your creativity in your choice of flooring, then you can opt for coloured ceramic tiles; these are very durable and cost less than other materials. Finally, if you want your room to look stylish and sophisticated, stone flooring is an excellent choice. The surface of every tile has its own unique texture, adding to the attraction of any room of the house.
Laminate:
Laminate flooring mimics the look of wood or tiles, and offers a more economical option. It's easy to install and requires very little maintenance, but can be easily damaged by water. Laminate boards are made from a mixture of wood fibre and melamine resin. The wood-grain pattern is printed onto the upper surface at a later stage. Although it may seem less stylish, its plus point is its composition, which makes it very resistant to moisture and wear and tear.
Porcelain stoneware:
This is now one of the most popular materials in the world of interior design, because of its wide range of potential effects and excellent performance. It's a strong, versatile material, produced in many different colours and styles, with effects such as cement, marble, grit or stone.
Vinyl or PVC:
Vinyl flooring comes in a wide range of colours and styles, and is water-resistant and easy to clean. It's a versatile option, and suitable for almost any room in the house. Vinyl flooring consists of several layers of different materials, which together produce a strong and durable surface. The two main types of vinyl floor are LVT and vinyl roll flooring. They are both made from the same materials but are structured in a different way.
Resin:
This type of flooring has also become very popular in recent years and is quick and easy to lay. It consists of a chemical compound that is poured onto a base to create a smooth, continuous surface. Resin flooring offers numerous possible variations in colour and finish, and a good installer will provide a wide range of options, including smooth or opaque finishes, veins, streaks and other effects. Resin flooring is also a very practical choice if you are renovating a building and do not want to lift the existing floor, or if you're putting in underfloor heating, as it's a very efficient conductor of heat.
Concrete:
Concrete flooring is fast becoming an attractive solution for apartments, as it's quick and easy to lay and very durable. The concrete can be processed in different ways to produce different surfaces: polished, trowelled or vitrified. By the use of particular mixtures and methods, the concrete can also be moulded on-site, stained with coloured oxides or given an epoxy finish. These techniques allow you to create a concrete floor that faithfully reproduces the appearance of stone, wood or other materials.
The different rooms:
Hallway and kitchen::
these are the areas of the house that see the heaviest use, and so it is best to choose a type of flooring that is hard-wearing and easy to clean, such as tiles or vinyl flooring. For the kitchen, avoid any sort of flooring that is easy to damage and not water-repellent; instead, opt for tiles that are resistant to stains and humidity, and tolerate regular cleaning.
Bathroom and laundry-room:
for these rooms, you really need a water-resistant floor, such as tiles and vinyl, to prevent any damage caused by damp. Indeed, bathroom surfaces are often in contact with products that contain chemicals or can cause stains (e.g. personal hygiene products, cosmetics, or perfumes), and so need to withstand the use of some stong chemical detergents to keep them clean and hygienic. It's therefore important to choose tiles that have high chemical resistance to acids and bases.
Bedrooms:
for the bedrooms in your home, you may like to choose a softer, more comfortable type of flooring, such as wood or laminate, to help create a warm atmosphere. However, in general, porcelain stoneware is a better choice, as it makes a real feature in the design of the room. It comes in a huge range of colours, textures, surfaces, sizes and thicknesses, and the versatile nature of the collections allows you to create many different combinations, and design bedrooms suited to any style and type of furniture.
Living area:
for the living room or dining room, you should choose a type of flooring that reflects the style and atmosphere you want to create. The living area is generally where you spend much of your time, so to give a stylish, contemporary look to your living room or dining room you might like to consider parquet flooring. It has the advantage of offering good thermal insulation, and in this part of the house there is no risk of it getting wet. A natural stone floor is also an attractive and popular choice, and makes a country-style room look very welcoming, as well as offering a green and sustainable solution.
Outdoors:
the main rule for outdoor flooring is that it must be weatherproof, strong and durable. It should also have a pleasing appearance, as it can act as the "visiting card" for your home. So this constitutes a real challenge for many people. Porcelain stoneware and concrete are the two best options: they are both very versatile, offering a wide range of colours, shades and finishes, and also give a stylish look to your outside space.
Style and Design:
Colours and finishes:
The colour and finish of a floor can have a huge effect on the overall appearance of a room. Choose lighter shades to give a sense of space or increase the brightness in the room. On the other hand, darker colours create a more welcoming, intimate atmosphere, and help define the limits of a very large space.
Sizes and patterns:
The format and pattern you choose for your flooring can have a considerable impact on the final appearance of the room. Tiles, in particular, allow you greater freedom in the size of format and method of arrangement. Larger tiles tend to make a room look bigger, and mosaic patterns can add a feeling of movement.
Coordination with furnishings:
It is important to consider how the flooring matches your existing furniture and the design of your house as a whole. The first rule for matching furniture to flooring is to ensure that the colours go well together. So, a very light-coloured porcelain stoneware or resin floor would go well either with furniture in contrasting colours (dark wood furniture in warmer shades), or with furniture in the same or a similar colour (white on white, or white on grey – very stylish). Another way to approach this would be to match the textures, grains or type of surfaces with the patterns in the flooring. This makes it rather difficult to match furniture and flooring, and so you really have two possible choices. Either you always look for the best combination of colours, or you choose more neutral finishes for your furniture, so that it doesn't clash with any particular texture. Wooden flooring in all its forms (boards, honeycomb-pattern or squares) gives you much more freedom of manoeuvre, because the possibilities here are endless.
Budget and maintenance:
Each type of flooring has a different initial price, so it's important to set yourself a budget before starting your search so as to avoid future problems. How sad would it be to choose a floor and then find you hadn't set aside sufficient funds? Among other factors, the cost of maintenance and possible future repairs need to be considered. For example, wood may require regular polishing and tiles may need repairing if they break, and you also need to consider how much time and effort it will take to clean and maintain a certain type of floor.
In conclusion, choosing the right sort of floor for your home depends on a number of factors, including the type and style of flooring, its location, and your budget. It's important to take the time to assess all the available options, and make a decision that meets your needs, your lifestyle and the overall setting. An architecture firm such as FAD will help you find a tailor-made solution that takes account of all the factors mentioned above. The customer is consulted at every stage from the initial design to the laying of the floor, creating a special relationship of trust between the parties.
