How To Choose Flooring For Different Areas of Your Home
You’re off to a good start already. If you’re considering choosing flooring for different areas of your home, you’re ahead of the game. Some of the most obvious factors to keep in mind are which areas will have elevated moisture levels, like the bathrooms, laundry rooms, mudrooms, entryways, and foyers.
Also, consider how many people live in your home and their ages. For example, porcelain tiles are easy to keep clean and virtually indestructible, but they might not be the best choice for toddlers racing around and tumbling over.
Some Key Questions To Consider
- How much of the flooring will you be replacing?
- Will resale value be important to you?
- Will you be renting out your home?
- Will you be guided by low-cost, high-quality, or personal preferences?
- Are you planning to have the floor professionally installed, or are you a DIYer?
Resistance to Scratches and Dents
Wear and tear on flooring is an important consideration when choosing which flooring is necessary. As you can imagine, some materials like porcelain, ceramic, and natural stone are highly durable. What may be surprising is how resistant to scratches and dents other materials have become. Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT) and laminate flooring are two options that have undergone many technical improvements over the years to increase their durability.
Why Neutral Colors Never Go Out of Style
Every teenager who has their own bedroom will at some point want to paint it a wild, exotic color. Thankfully, when we get a little older, most realize that neutral colors can create a calm, soothing, and timeless atmosphere.
Even highly creative people who vary wall colors from room to room will “pull it all together’ with beautiful neutral-color flooring for the entire home. The natural beauty of wood flooring pairs well with decorative accents, patterns, and other focal points often used when designing spaces.
The Creative Genius of Area Rugs
High traffic on your hardwood floors? Area rugs to the rescue! Almost infinite sizes, colors, shapes, and materials make area rugs one of your home’s most versatile and imaginative solutions. For example, an area rug under a large table can help define a dining room within a larger area.
Likewise, a thick, warm wool area rug in the center of a large living room with a hardwood floor can help create an inviting area for the whole family to gather and play a board game instead of watching tv.
Laminate Flooring – Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo . . .
Whichever room you have in mind – laminate flooring will steal the show. We’re not even kidding. If you think laminate flooring is still noisy, slippery, and faux-looking from years ago, you’re in for a big surprise. Today, we have laminate flooring that’s quiet, incredibly tough, and almost indistinguishable from hardwood flooring.
Vinyl Flooring – The Smart, Practical Choice For Any Room
Vinyl flooring is becoming increasingly popular because of its exceptional performance and increasing variety of sophisticated designs and colors. It’s cost-effective, relatively easy to install, and resistant to scratches, scuffs, and dents. Of course, it’s waterproof, so it’s perfect for any bathroom, laundry room, or anywhere except high moisture environments.
How Flooring Can Affect Your Home’s Resale Value
Solid hardwood flooring can be one of the best upgrades you can make to your home for yourself and if you ever want to move. People recognize that hardwood floors are a timeless sign of quality. Today’s high-end engineered floors create the same sort of appeal. They are both durable, easy-to-maintain, and with the proper care, these floors can last for many decades.
Porcelain and Ceramic Tile Flooring
Other popular flooring options can also increase the resale value of your home. These include ceramic or porcelain tiles, broadloom or wall-to-wall carpeting, luxury vinyl planks, and natural stone tiles. In fact, when done right, most of today’s high-quality flooring options will impress both your own family and prospective home buyers alike.
Professional Installation Is Cost-Effective
We’ve all been there. We’ve all tried our hand at doing our repairs and upgrades. Of course, almost every homeowner tries to save money here and there by doing the work themselves. But, sooner or later, most of us learn that finding a trustworthy professional installer to replace a floor is significantly better than doing the work ourselves.
Many types of flooring can be completed in only a few days. But if you’re thinking of tackling anything more than a small room, it can take you more than a few days to complete. So when you consider moving all that furniture around and disrupting your family’s routine, it might not be worth it – if you get it right the first time.
Save Money By Planning Ahead
It doesn’t cost you a penny to plan ahead. In fact, taking the time to shop around and narrow down your choices can save you a lot of time and money. It makes sense to have a discussion or two with your family to compare personal preferences ahead of time. Then, you can discuss possible future work with a local flooring expert you can trust.
Someone familiar with the Dallas/Fort Worth area will help you select the best flooring for your specific needs according to your home type and personal style.
Save Time With Shop-At-Home Service
Shopping at home for flooring is becoming increasingly popular for busy homeowners. Even if you have the time to do your own research, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t take advantage of the shop-at-home service. Some people prefer setting an appointment early on in the planning process so that they get off on the right foot.
In addition, looking at different flooring options in the specific rooms you are interested in helps you see the flooring in the correct light conditions. The lighting in your home might not match the lighting in the stores, which can cause disappointment.
(214) 390-0850
Dan Ratcliff
Dan Ratcliff is the CEO and President of Flooring Direct in Dallas / Fort Worth. Over the last two decades, he has grown Flooring Direct into a premier Shop-at-Home traditional & hardwood flooring company. With a true dedication to customer service and integrity, Flooring Direct has become DFW's largest highest-rated Dallas-local flooring dealer. Dan has lived in Dallas all of his life and was raised in Dallas with family roots and love for the community and local sports. It's with that sense of family that Flooring Direct has contributed to and sponsored children's organizations like Jonathan's Place and scholastic athletics like Plano's Girls Soccer.
