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Choosing the Right Flooring for Your Home
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Have you ever noticed the warm room ambience shown in a Japanese film? Or the living room’s elegant and luxurious impression shown in a Hollywood film? To create such atmospheres, flooring could be the one playing the most part.
For instance, wooden flooring can conjure up a warm ambience and marble flooring can create a luxurious look. However, it doesn’t mean that all types of flooring can be applied to any kind of rooms or residences. There are some aspects and types of flooring that need to be considered before choosing the right flooring for your home.
Ceramic Tiles Flooring
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It is safe to say that the most common type of flooring in many homes is the ceramic tiles. Made of clay material, they are generally affordable. Also, they come in a variety of colours, motifs, textures, and sizes.
If you’re looking for a type of flooring that doesn’t need extra care, then ceramic tile flooring is the right choice. The recent technology of ceramic tile production has made this material less prone to scratch. You can sweep and mop it like usual. Ceramic tiles are also suitable to be installed in any room in your home, with any theme you like; all it takes is matching colour or pattern.
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Solid wood floors or often called as parquet flooring can be categorised as a luxurious and expensive flooring material. However, along with the development of technology, there is an alternative for solid wood flooring available these days, namely engineered wood, or laminate wood. Taking care of engineered wood flooring is simple; you can simply sweep or mop it like ceramic tile flooring. While for solid wood, it is true that you can sweep and mop it with a half-wet cloth; but, you also need to pay more attention while cleaning it because you may scratch it easily. To enhance the luxurious look, you can apply coating to the wood flooring to make it appear glossier.
Natural Stone Flooring
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Natural stone flooring indeed is the most expensive type compared to the others. But surely, the price is worth the quality and the appearance. Natural stone floor has high durability and a luxurious, natural as well as elegant look. It is also available in various pattern and could bring out a natural ambience.
If you desire to use this type of flooring, you should prepare some budget and extra care, because aside from being expensive, it needs proper maintenance. This kind of flooring needs coating or polishing periodically to keep it look fresh. Cleaning natural stones also requires special technique and products to avoid stains forming permanently or even cracking. There are several types of natural stone flooring, such as: granite, marble, andesite, limestone, basalt and so on.
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Vinyl is a kind of synthetic floor with a variety of pattern, like wood, stones, marble and many more. The advantages of a vinyl floor are the affordable prices and the selections of pattern and colours available.
If you’re bored with the look of your current flooring, you can replace it with vinyl simply by directly installing it onto the surface of your ceramic tiles. Vinyl itself comes in various shapes, including planks, square tiles, and also roll.
Carpet Flooring
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Carpet floor can bring out a warm and comfortable ambience in your rooms. But you should be careful when choosing this type of flooring, as it is more suitable for subtropical climate. If you would like to put a carpet in your home, make sure the area is dry and constantly air-conditioned. This is also why this type of flooring is more commonly used in office buildings, libraries, and hotel rooms, simply because they’re usually dry and air-conditioned.
The cost for carpet flooring can also be quite expensive. On top of that, it needs extra maintenance as it requires a vacuum cleaner and must be regularly aerated to keep it from getting musty and smelly.
