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Floors
By peace | June 22, 2007
A stylish floor covering will lift your rooms instantly and enhance their impression of comfort. In the same way, ugly, stained or worn floors create an air of decay and grubbiness that won’t go away until they do. The fact that more of your budget is likely to be taken up by floor coverings than any other element is due partly to the fact that after walls, floors cover the largest area in your home. Unlike walls, they have to withstand constant wear and damaging grime, either tracked in from outside or deposited by gravity.
Flooring Types
Finding an appropriate floor covering for your home involves identifying a combination of style and practicality that works for you. Floor covering trends seem to change more often. The floor coverings are grouped under four basic types:
1. Soft Flooring - carpets, rugs and natural coverings
2. Wood Flooring - bamboo, man-made boards
3. Resilient Flooring - vinyl, linoleum, rubber, cork, and leather
4. Hard Flooring - stone, concrete, metal and tiles (ceramic, quarry, etc)
When it comes to choosing between these surfaces, it’s easy to be swayed by appearance alone, but there are a number of other factors to keep in mind:
- Durability - How much wear will the floor get?
- Noise Level - The harder the surface, the noisier it is, and downstairs neighbours will suffer more than those next door.
- Access - Do any major pipes, wires or ducts run underneath the floor?
- Temperature - Soft flooring is the most efficient insulator of all.
- Absorbency - Many floor coverings are vulnerable to damp, sot hey are unsuitable for rooms where water gets splashed about.
- Hygiene - choose washable floors for bathrooms and kitchens
- Installation - Some flooring requires special underlay and skilled fitting.
Whatever flooring you choose, it will need an even, stable base, which means sorting out bumpy boards. Sometimes this may involve laying a subfloor. If you ignore this requirement, your covering will look lumpy and wear far more quickly.
