Flooring Tips: 5 Things To Think About

For some of us, choosing flooring for your home is easy. Some of us just find a carpet they like the look of without taking into account all the benefits or setbacks that certain flooring styles can bring to your home.
When choosing between flooring options for your home, there are many factors to consider. While you may find some flooring that you think would look great, it might not be the best choice practically for the way your room is actually used. To ensure that your flooring creates the perfect look and feel for your home, along with being the best practical choice for the room, there are 5 essential things to think about.

Colour

Colour is often the first thing that people decide on when choosing a carpet, but the colour of the carpet affects far more than just the look of the room. The colour of your floor can decide on how spacious your room looks, for instance a darker colour can make the room feel smaller than it is, while a lighter carpet will open up the feel of the room. However, darker carpets will hide stains and dirt better than lighter carpets and will retain a wear-free look for longer, but this can also mean you will not be conscious of the carpet’s condition and aren’t likely to clean it as much. Another important factor is if you are buying a carpet for a child’s bedroom in a bright colour, how long will it be before the child outgrows the bright colour and will want a more neutral colour?

Traffic

One of the most important things to think about when choosing a floor for your room is traffic. How much is this room walked through? We recommend using twist pile carpets for high traffic areas to maximise the amount of time that your carpet feels new. Twist pile carpets are made by twisting the threads of the carpet together to form a more durable, coarser feeling. It may be tempting to buy the lushest and thickest carpets for in every room, but when a room receives a lot of traffic, a more durable floor is your best bet. However, the bedroom is the perfect place for saxony carpets. Saxony carpets are thicker and more luxurious, and are the perfect fit for rooms that require a cosier feel. An alternative for high traffic rooms is to put vinyl or wooden flooring down and use a rug as decoration.

Pets

If your room is also the stomping ground for a cat or dog, there are a few extra things to consider. If you choose a saxony carpet for a bedroom that is also the main habitat for the family cat, your lovely new luxury carpet is at risk of being damaged by the cat’s claws, and will probably cause its claws to get stuck around the longer threads of a saxony carpet. To avoid this, twist pile carpets are a good choice for pet-occupied rooms, but loop pile carpets are known for hiding stains better than both twist pile and saxony carpets. So when your dog brings in mud from the garden, a loop pile carpet will be easier to clean.

Heat

An important thing to consider about your flooring is how well will it insulate the room? Is one of your rooms particularly bad at holding heat? A saxony carpet would be a good option due to its thickness. Does your bedroom feel like a greenhouse all year round? Maybe a thinner carpet or vinyl floor would help cool it down. You’ll find that using flooring as another form of heat insulation will help you cut down on unnecessary energy use, and will save you money in the long term.

Atmosphere

One could argue that the most important thing to think about when decorating your home is what you want it to feel like, and the flooring choices you make will play a major part in deciding this. Underfoot feel, colour and insulation all contribute to this, so when choosing a floor, try and balance out these three factors to determine what you can expect from what certain floor will bring to your rooms. Unfortunately this isn’t an exact science, as two totally different types of floor can make a room feel the same way but for different reasons. For example, a thick saxony carpet will help a room feel warm and cosy due to the underfoot feel, but a dark wood vinyl flooring coupled with a rug will add to the rooms cosiness because of how it looks. A thick carpet that is bright green will bring a cosy feel, but not a cosy look. The best advice we can give you on this front is to decide on how you want your room to feel before you decide the look, and then tailor your choices around achieving that atmosphere.

Choosing a carpet can be difficult no matter how much research you’ve done on the subject, so if you need expert advice with your flooring options, get in touch with the Pyramid Carpets team today and let us help you floor your home to perfection.