Choosing the right flooring for your home

Choosing the right flooring for your home wouldn\’t be such a problem as long you can determine and consider the important factors. Among factors that you should think of is lifestyle, climate, budget, comfort and degree of use. These factors play important parts and influence to your flooring options. To help you on choosing the right flooring, consider these factors below.

Lifestyle
You will need different type of care with different type of flooring. If you are an active and busy working person, it is better to use flooring that is easy to take care of and needs very little maintenance. For family orientated type with small kids and pets, it is advisable to use easy to clean type of flooring such as laminating woods which can sustain the damages from liquid. Laminated wood is easy to clean. What you need is simply a damp mop and clean when needed. Other option you can use is ceramic and carpet. Although it\’s easy to take care of, the ceramic flooring will need you to seal the floor about once a year. Carpet will let you to take care in low maintenance mode but if it gets stain, it can be very difficult to clean.

Budget
There\’s a lot of price range for flooring. On the top range for flooring are hardwood types which include oak, maple and cherry. A light red brown American cherry is a soft wood that will darken over time to a very deep shade of brown. It is the most expensive hardwood flooring. Another alternative for American cherry is the Brazilian cherry. The Brazilian cherry offers reasonable lower price and is available on the market. Maple flooring will age into a deep golden color. The characteristic for maple wood are hard and durable but it can easily get stained and prone to weather damages such as shrinking and swelling. While oak flooring provides you with distinct and less refined than cherry woods, it\’s been a traditional choice for wood flooring over a hundred years. The most sought after is red oak which can be bleach and very hard. White oak is very similar to red oak only it has slightly green undertones and can\’t be bleached.

Laminated flooring provides you with a price similar to hardwoods only that in the long run it is more economical because these types of flooring needs very little maintenance. Laminated flooring can duplicate the look of nearly any hardwood which depends on how much you can pay for the cost. You can\’t even tell the difference even if you touch the flooring for some of the high ends types! Others such as ceramic tile are also less expensive if you can install them by yourself. Carpet can be inexpensive or vice versa depending on the quality of the carpet you choose. Scattered and thinly type of carpet are less expensive than the lush and dense type of carpet.

Climate
A warm and dry all year round climate acquire most of the flooring you can think of. Places which have heavy rainfall for common, you have to avoid using hardwood flooring because the moisture will become the culprit. Wintery climate needs a flooring type such as carpet which can give the heat to your home better than any flooring available unless if you install in-floor heat in your home.

Style
Hardwood flooring contributes to a formal and elegant style for your home. If your home is filled with people and you want to decrease the noise disturbance, try carpet flooring as it will absorb the noise and also lend the informal air to your house. Ceramic tile and laminates are best to use in any type of space in your home.

Comfort
If you spend more time on the floor or you have children that loves to do so, make sure you choose the flooring which is comfortable to sit and lay on. You can use carpets, or rugs on laminate, hardwood or tile flooring to soften them up. Choose carpet which is easy to clean and durable. Plush and tightly woven carpet is much better as it provides more protection to your toddler or crawling kids body.

Degree of use
You should also consider the impact of usage to the flooring that you will use. You can use heavy and durable flooring which is suitable for the area with very high traffic or people walking on it. The types of flooring that you can use for this are ceramic tile and laminated flooring. Avoid using carpet and hardwood as this type of flooring can be worn off and damage in such condition.

Additional reading:
http://www.howtodothings.com/real-estate/a3999-how-to-choose-flooring-for-your-home.html

Image source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hkuchera/2830627313/