The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Right Flooring for Your Home

September 6, 2023

There are plenty of design elements that make a house truly feel like a home. Whether you’re picking out one-of-a-kind antiques or acquiring the right light fixtures, pulling a space together to match your vision is a full-time operation.

Sometimes, the accouterments get more focus than the housing basics; while flooring may seem less exciting and with fewer options, the types of floors available are incredibly diverse and can turn your average room into a design marvel. This ultimate guide to choosing your ideal flooring type will pave the way for a brilliantly elegant, timeless, and undeniably personal home.

Hardwood

Highly coveted yet understandably ubiquitous, hardwood flooring is essential for elevated rooms, apartments, and family homes. Hardwood is not a monolith; it has many types, finishes, and manufacturers that individualize their panels’ exteriors. If you want the perfect base for your living room, bedroom, or dining room, here is some imperative information on different wood flooring before you make a lofty purchase.

Solid hardwood flooring is the best go-to for any room. This type of flooring uses single planks cut directly from the tree, creating the familiar staggered wood pattern. Solid hardwood flooring is optimal for rooms with heavy foot traffic and is common in prefinished and unfinished styles. Installation is best for at or above-ground rooms since wood reacts to moisture and could be damaged by excessive humidity.

If you’re looking for that classic aesthetic without the cost of solid hardwood, engineered wood flooring is another way to go. This flooring utilizes thin layers of wood molded together through heat, pressure, or adhesive.

Wood Types

When choosing between solid or engineered flooring, knowing what tree species are used for floor paneling will help you make more informed decisions.

Hardwood gets its name from the firmness of a tree’s planks. Species harvested for flooring, like oak, cherry, and maple, are widely prevalent for their sturdiness. Most hardwood floorings come from those three trees, though homeowners recently have been delving into more exotic, expensive species.

Bamboo, cork, and Brazillian cherry are three wood types that have gained a strong foothold in home design over the last decade. Brazilian cherry is known for its rustic, reddish hue, while bamboo has a yellowish tone popular with greener construction due to its fast regrowth. Though oak still makes up more than two-thirds of home flooring around the country, these imported species may pique your interest depending on your design outlook.

Wood Finishes

Though some might prefer the appearance of unfinished wood, adding a protective coating to your floors is a proactive and economical idea. Finishes not only conserve the wood’s durability and longevity but can also alter the look and design of the entire flooring. There are many different finishes to choose from, but the two most popular types are polyurethane and wax.

Polyurethane comes in two separate categories: oil-based and water-based. Oil-based finishes are often less expensive but effortlessly reliable, perfect for surfaces that experience high foot traffic. This type of polyurethane has a yellowish finish, which often deepens over time. Those looking for a more rustic, warm tone to their flooring should look no further than this hardwood finish.

Water-based polyurethanes don’t contain the synthetic resins and tough oils the previous finish has, meaning that only specific types of hardwood should receive this coating. It’s usually great for a final sealer since it dries quickly without excessive odors. A pro to water-based finishes is that it doesn’t add extra coloring or artistic change to the wood. If you’re satisfied with the type of wood you’ve selected for your floors, utilizing this polyurethane will be best to maintain its original look.

Hard oil waxes are the best of both varnishing worlds; wax finishes combine protective oils with a pigment option if you want added color. Utilized in Europe for centuries, the United States is relatively new to the oil wax craze. These days, this particular wax is used for low-sheen floor finishes, which also extend the lifespan of hardwood. The only downside is that it needs more maintenance than sweeping and mopping. A layer of oil must be reapplied every two to four years. If this added upkeep isn’t a dealbreaker, and you want to accentuate your hardwood’s natural appearance without extra sheen, hard oil waxes are a great choice.

Laminate Flooring

Laminate floors are a more recent trend in home design. They’ve become more popular due to their long lifespan and similar likeness to hardwood. If you’re welcoming new pets into your house or have a large family under your roof, durable flooring like laminate options is the answer.

A huge benefit of laminate floors is the cost. They’re generally less expensive than hardwood since their comprised materials aren’t as costly or labor intensive. Its installation is one of the quickest for flooring projects, with a simple lock-together system and limited additional components. If DIY is your style, choose laminate flooring for undemanding installation without hiring expensive contractors.

Vinyl Flooring

Homeowners frequently mistake vinyl flooring for laminate ones or interchange the two. Though they might appear similarly, vinyl floors have many differences beyond the materials they’re comprised of.

While laminate floors are wood-based, vinyl has a PVC or stone base layer. Vinyl planks are placed on top, ranging from hardwood lookalikes to off-white, white, and black facades. A critical proponent of these floors is their waterproof nature, something that hardwood floors can’t withstand without upkeep and cleaning. For bathrooms, kitchens, or basement rooms, vinyl could be a great option to withstand moisture-rich environments.

Vinyl floors are equally as easy to install as their laminate counterparts. Its click-together installation process makes it an excellent project for home renovators as well as those looking for flooring on a budget.

Tile and Natural Stone

Tile flooring is exceptionally self-explanatory: flooring made of a tile formation. The material is usually stone, porcelain, or clay-based ceramic. The gaps between the tiles are filled with grout, a cement mixture that hardens and connects the flooring.

Natural stone is one of the most popular tile options, usually made of granite, slate, or marble. Though its maintenance is fairly easy, buying stone floors are expensive, and their installation is laborious. A major pro of stone floors, though, is that they’re completely water-resistant, making them perfect for bathrooms and outdoor areas.

A cost-efficient tile option to look into is porcelain. Porcelain is a ceramic material with sufficient hydrophobic properties. These tiles are just as heavy and difficult to install as other ceramic or stone floorings, but porcelain’s economic advantage is nothing to right off.

Tile has some of the most diverse styles on the market compared to hardwood or laminate flooring. While wood, vinyl, and laminate mostly stick to their paneled shape, individual tile shapes range from squares and hexagons to half moons and diamonds. Tile layouts can be relatively simple or widely intricate, from checkerboard formations to asymmetrical, abstract designs. Depending on whether you’re going for a vintage, modern, or futuristic vibe, you can find tile flooring that will adequately suit your needs.

Carpet

Now that you’ve found your flooring, you can pivot to floor adornments such as carpets. A carpet is a wall-to-wall floor covering typically made of woven fabric. If you’re looking to install one for a bedroom, living room, or anything in between, here are some critical pieces of information to consider before moving forward.

Broadloom carpets are the most ubiquitous style of carpeting in America. Its name comes from the type of loom they’re crafted with, which is wider in length than a standard loom. Since each manufacturer has standardized looms, buyers often have little control over a carpet’s width. For example, if a buyer has an eight-foot by eight-foot room, but the manufacturer’s loom only produces carpets with ten-foot widths, a ten-by-eight carpet must be bought first before cutting it to fit the desired space. Knowing this information about broadloom carpets can save buyers money and time while searching for the perfect floor covering.

Hand-tufted carpets also get their name from their crafting method. These coverings are made by putting a canvas over a frame, then tufting the canvas with threaded yarn. Though it might seem time intensive, this rug-making technique is often quicker than a loom, allowing for more economical carpeting.

Though carpets are often made of wool, synthetic materials have also become more common in their composition. Synthetic fabrics like nylon and polyester are routinely found in carpets and rugs, which help decrease their general cost. But if softness and comfort are what you’re striving for, then wool coverings are a clear choice. Though paying for yards of wool carpeting can be expensive, having an exceptionally comfortable carpet for your kids’ playroom or master bedroom can make a world of difference.

Area Rugs

Adding an area rug is ideal if you want the coziness of carpet without it taking up an entire room. These coverings come in different shapes, sizes, and patterns, allowing you to match the rug to your room’s aesthetic.

Classic area coverings that are undeniably distinguishable are Persian rugs. Though the name comes from fabric carpets woven in Iran, their unique designs have spread across the globe and are now manufactured worldwide. These carpets are known by various styles, from a basic pattern that covers the entire rug to a “medallion” that occupies the rug’s center with contrasting images along the corners or sides. Persian rugs often have noticeable motifs or symbols that reoccur, like the Buta, a pinecone or almond shape with a sharp, curved top.

Though many reach for vintage rug styles, hand-tufted, modern area rugs are gaining more popularity in homes across America. These rugs often utilize neutral colors and gradients to soften a space instead of adding a visual statement. Contemporary rugs can come in many designs, too, like waves or geometric patterns. Circular and ovular rugs are also wonderful for placing under a light fixture or coffee table. Whichever covering you choose, an area rug is an exceptional accentuation to any space without enveloping an entire room.

The flooring world is exquisite and wonderful, even when it’s slightly daunting or convoluted. Don’t let the vernacular fool you; finding the perfect flooring isn’t difficult if you’ve got the right information and an allocated budget. With this compiled knowledge, you can guide yourself through picking out your home’s hardwood or carpeting easily and confidently.

Blog