Tips for choosing the right flooring for your home
Picking the right flooring for your home can have a huge impact, dramatically altering the way your home looks and feels whenever someone enters it.
It is also something that you should really try and get right the first time because you will need to live with that decision for quite a while because you most likely cannot afford to change your flooring every few months, not only from a financial perspective but also because a lot of time and energy gets invested into it.
So to help you out a bit with deciding on the right flooring, here is a guide with some tips and things to keep in mind before you start perusing the market and picking out what catches your eye.
Space
The first factor to consider is the room or rooms in which the flooring is going to be laid, as the shape and size can play a major role in making the correct choice, as can how the room is lit.
Flooring works similarly in this regard, as do paint and wall coverings; they all matter a lot, so getting the floor tiles right matters just as much, if not more than getting the right lights, because you can change out lightbulbs or something as much as you like, while flooring does not have the same luxury. Light-colored flooring, for example, will make the room feel more spacious and open, while darker colors can bring a closer warmth.
One method of finding out what color will work best is to head to your local flooring supplier and ask for some samples, go back home and lay them out in the rooms you want. You will get a better sense of how they are going to blend in and look with the room, the lighting, and the furniture, and you will get the opportunity to see how the flooring will look during different times of the day too.
Lifestyle
As with many other things, your lifestyle is a factor you should consider too when picking out flooring. Do you live by yourself, or do you have a family and a hectic household? What kind of activities does your home see regularly? Do you have pets?
If you have a family and young children, you may want to go for durable flooring as children obviously run and play around a lot, or should, at least, and comfortable flooring, like cork, may also be a good option too. If you have a cat or a dog, you should definitely pick flooring that is scratch- and water-resistant, and just durable in general; in fact, you will often find flooring options that are specifically made for homes with pets, so take a look at them too.
Appearance
Style and appearance are a huge factor, and sort of the whole point of “the right” flooring, as otherwise you could just grab the first type of flooring you see and call it a day as its function has been served.
But function and style both, in tandem, are what make flooring effective, so take your time and consider your home, and the style it already has, and which flooring will blend in best, adding to the atmosphere instead of taking away from it, or even just seeming completely at odds with the rest of your home because you saw it in a showroom or online somewhere and it looked great, but you forgot that it just does not fit your house at all.
Do not make that mistake. In the end, it is completely your choice that will drive this decision, but you should try to find flooring that enhances a style your home already has, instead of doing something completely different.
Function
Style matters, absolutely, but you also mustn’t forget that function, and practicality, are pretty much the reason why flooring exists in the first place, so you do not walk on dirt or concrete. Again, consider your lifestyle, but also the room’s purpose before you choose.
The kitchen, for example, will see not only a whole lot of activity but also stains and spills because of the cooking and baking and so on, so you need flooring that is both durable and easy to clean should something be spilled or dropped. Living rooms see a lot of foot activity, so again, durability should be a criterion when you are browsing flooring, and so on it goes.
The right flooring can make all the difference in how your home looks and feels, so take your time to look at the rooms you want to put flooring in, and the rooms themselves. Using the criteria mentioned here, among others, should help you reach a decision you will not regret.
