Top interior design considerations for designing a space – Flooring
In our fourth post of 10 posts in the series From The Top, we’ll be discussing complimentary carpet and hard flooring solutions to help enhance your space in more detail.
Our posts in this series are intended to be read separately or in conjunction with each other. We’ll continue to reveal our 10 top interior design considerations with you throughout October concentrating next on furniture, soft furnishings, accessories, lighting, acoustics and storage.
What if I’ve missed previous from the top posts?
Don’t worry if you’ve missed any of our earlier posts in this series, we’ve placed them in our From The Top category to make it easier for you to find them, and stay up to date.
Choosing Your Flooring
Flooring is one of the key design considerations when designing a space and can really enhance a design if well chosen or spoil it . Equally due to the size of the floor surface area in main living areas a lack of careful planning could lead to a very costly exercise.
However here are some considerations to help you in decision-making process.
Decide what the floor finish is intended for and take into account the usage of the space, I.e. a hallway directly opposite the main entrance is likely to suffer more wear and tear and any covering needs to reflect this.
Stairs and halls
Make and impact
United Carpets Funky lines range is sure to make an instant impact.
Hallways and stairs offer visitors the first impression of your home and can be a statement about who you are and how you live, so you’ll want to make them as welcoming and appealing as possible. There are a huge selection of carpets which are graded for different types of domestic use including suitable options for the highest traffic areas.
Plaid is one of the biggest trends right now with stripes being popular too and they’re really suited to being used for stair runners and can be custom-made for any size rugs to coordinate your look. However not all carpets are suitable for use on stairs so be sure to check or ask for advice if you’re unsure.
Hard flooring
Hard flooring is easy to look after. Solid wood flooring such as Walnut is timeless and makes any room in the house feel luxurious.
Other options available are sheet vinyl, vinyl tiles and engineered wood, with many popular options available. Vinyl is excellent for kitchens and bathrooms due to waterproof qualities in addition to being warm underfoot.
Laminate flooring
Laminate flooring is ideal for living areas and hallways and certain ranges are suitable for bathrooms and kitchens, remember to check advice given on the packaging. If you like the idea of wood but without the high costs, try a good quality laminate, which is stain-resistant, durable and chip proof in addition to being low maintenance.
Engineered flooring
Engineered, veneered or real wood top layer flooring is made up of both softwood or man-made board with a thin layer of solid timber bonded to the surface.
Carpets
Living room flooring
A new carpet is an excellent way to brighten up any living room with neutral colours still leading in popularity for living rooms due to them adding a sense of calm to a space. If you want a carpet with more texture try a loop carpet, these carpets come in combined tones, carpets with a flecked appearance are good for hiding marks.
Bedroom flooring
Carpet can instantly transform a bedroom with a range of luxury deep pile velvet or shag pile or bold stripes and natural grasses. Sisal is hard-wearing and lends itself to many applications. Seagrass is stain-resistant and naturally textured.
These are a selection of our prefered flooring options although we know there are many more.
The internet and lifestyle magazines offer multiple examples of floor coverings available and often give advice about how to prepare and lay them. Most Diy stores now also offer How To Leaflets on different types of flooring and preparation and laying techniques in the form of illustrative leaflets with demonstrations in store becoming a popular feature with customers.
As with any space you’re designing remember to factor in lighting considerations and furnishing, we’ll focus on this in more detail in our specific posts on lighting and furnishings in this series.
Q If I want to replace my carpet in my bedroom will I have to clear the room of its furniture?
If you are unable to move your furniture most fitters can do this for you. Let the estimator know so they can include this in your estimate and make the necessary arrangements.
Q We would like underfloor heating in our living room – what do we need to take into account when choosing carpet flooring?
If you want to have carpet its essential to find one with a low tog rating, as if the carpets too heavy, the heat won’t get through. This also needs to be applied for underlay. look for tog ratings information on labels or ask an expert for advice.
As with other design considerations its important to choose a floor solution that you like within your budget. Over compromising is likely to leave you with a result that you are not happy with but have to live with, which becomes a source of frustration for you each time you move through the space.
Next design consideration in this series
In our fifth From The Top blog we’ll look closer at furniture solutions in more detail, however in the meantime take a look at Living It Up for additional inspiration and advice on designing your living room.
Let us know if you would like us to cover other areas of interior design and we’ll try our best to include these in future content.
Until next time……
From Room In A Boxx
