Home Floor & Décor Choices for Your New Home
Flooring plays a big role in your home décor, taking up vast surface area with huge visual impact. Combine this with your individual taste and desire for easy maintenance or a luxurious look and you’ve got some important decisions to make with lots of options to choose from.
Getting Started
There are a number of considerations for choosing the right flooring materials:
Start with the kitchen and bathrooms where moisture resistance, durability, high traffic, children and pets are all important factors. Ceramic tile, water-resistant laminates and even waterproof luxury vinyl are among practical choices for kitchens and bathrooms.
Hardwood
Hardwood flooring adds warmth, unique patterns and a natural appearance. It is both water and scratch resistant and lasts a lifetime with sanding and re-finishing over the years. This home floor and decor choice is suitable for the entire home and area rugs can be added to create visual interest and warmth.
Natural Stone
If you prefer a more formal look, the luxury of natural stone, like marble, is unparalleled. While stone are pricier than other options, the long-lasting beauty and resale value of these natural materials makes them appealing.
Laminate and Vinyl
Laminate is composite wood topped with a printed-paper layer to look like hardwood or tile. This is an attractive and affordable alternative to natural materials. With interlocking planks, laminates offer comfort but, are not recommended for bathrooms due to moisture. Vinyl is a 100% plastic product with high moisture resistance and often installed in kitchens and baths.
Ceramic and Porcelain Tile
Porcelain is a more durable flooring material which is why it tends to be pricier than ceramic. However, ceramic is still highly durable. It’s important to note that tile can be slippery when wet, is cold on bare feet and is harder on a bad back. The good news is area rugs are a perfect remedy for all these problem factors.
Bamboo
An eco-friendly alternative to hardwood is high-quality bamboo flooring, known to be just as durable. Versatile and available in water-resistant formats, bamboo comes in many shades to enhance the décor of any room in the house. If you are seeking a fresh look for your floors, you might choose bamboo.
Wall-to-Wall Carpeting
For many, nothing beats the comfort of soft carpeting. It completes the look of a room with many color and texture choices, bringing together your home floor and decor. However, carpets do stain and show wear patterns over time, needing to be replaced. From a cost perspective, carpeting is comparable to laminate flooring.
Today’s selection of home flooring offers a variety of patterns and materials to suit many tastes, lifestyles and budgets. You may want to mix and match the flooring materials for your rooms, choosing practicality for kitchen and bath, greater durability for family living areas and the more luxurious naturals in areas where you entertain. It’s all about your home, your way.