Flooring Choices When Remodeling Your Home

Author: Jim Knight

"Home is the place where it feels right to walk around without shoes."

- Unknown origin.

However, to walk around barefoot in your home, you need to have suitable flooring installed. Flooring or floor covering refers to any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface.

Although "flooring" and "floor covering" are commonly used interchangeably, flooring mostly refers to installed materials while floor covering covers loose-laid materials. Materials almost always classified as floor covering incorporate carpet, area rugs, and resilient flooring such as linoleum or vinyl flooring. Common flooring materials are wood flooring, ceramic tile, stone, terrazzo, and a variety of seamless chemical floor coatings.

During a home remodeling, you are spoiled for preference as far as your flooring options are concerned. However, you should take into a few factors like price, durability, appearance, lifespan, sound insulation, cleaning effort and prevailing climate earlier making your selection.

Here are some flooring options for you to consider:

1. Hardwood flooring - Hardwoods like oak, beech, ash, maple and cherry are preferred for flooring purposes owing to their durability and ordinary look. Also, hardwood flooring ages well and can be refurbished to restore its initial look. However, it is susceptible to scratches and absorbs water. Hence, if you have pets or live in a moist climate, hardwood flooring is not recommended.

2. Softwood flooring - Softwood flooring made from the timber of coniferous trees is cheaper than hardwood but not as long-lasting. However, it does lend a usual look to your residence.

3. sLaminate flooring - Laminate flooring appears similar to hardwood but is made with a plywood or medium density fiberboard (MDF) core sealed under high pressure, with a plastic laminate top layer. It can be made to resemble tile, wood, or stone, and is cheaper than any of those materials.

Although persistent, laminate flooring does not add to the value of the property or lends itself to refurbishment. Also, despite the comfort of establishment, one should be careful that no gaps remain between the elements and the floor beneath, as that can make noise when walking.

4. Cork flooring - This uses eco-friendly flooring substance manufactured from the byproduct of the cork oak tree. Since tree bark is used for its production, no trees require to be cut down. Cork flooring comes in both tiles and planks, and can have glue or glues-less installation. It is extremely durable due to its honeycomb cellular configuration that grant for 40% compression without causing constant impairment.

5. Resilient flooring - Uses materials that have some resilience, such as linoleum, sheet vinyl, vinyl composition tile (VCT), etc. Linoleum is biodegradable, non-toxic and economical. Although tough to install, it is truly easy to maintain. Vinyl flooring is present in sheets or tiles, and is low-cost and low-maintenance. However, it is not very persistent. Resilient flooring is recommended for humid climes.

6. Ceramic flooring - Ceramic flooring includes a wide variety of fired clay products situate into mortar, such as quarry tile, porcelain tile, terracotta tile, etc. It is precious and hard to install, but long-term benefits far overcome the disadvantages. It is very durable and defiant to scratches, and comes in numerous designs to math any decor.

7. Stone flooring - Slate and marble are well- liked types of stone flooring. Terrazzo is made of marble or other stone aggregate set in mortar and polished.

8. Seamless chemical flooring - These are most often latex, polyester, urethane or epoxy compounds which are applied in liquid form and then harden to furnish a wholly seamless floor covering.

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