More than 80% of homeowners will choose durability over style when choosing the flooring for their house. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way now. You can choose a style when you need the room to be stylish such as the family room and bedrooms. You can choose functional and practical flooring when it’s a working room such as the kitchen, basement, and laundry area.
Of course, you want floors that can take a beating as opposed to just looking good. Aesthetics fall second to practicality and durability. But it’s 2020, and even though the pandemic has turned the world upside-down, technology is here. Homeowners no longer have to choose between form and function because thanks to technology, vinyl flooring can look like authentic reclaimed Barnwood and porcelain tiles can pass for marble flooring.
If you’re worried about the repetitive pattern that’s characteristic of faux flooring of the past, this is not a problem now. Today’s technology can produce textured floor tiles minus the repetitive pattern. That makes it possible for you to outfit your home with vinyl flooring without it looking like a cheap version of hardwood flooring.
Dining and Living Rooms
With kids in the house, homeowners think that it is more practical to choose porcelain tiles for the living room. After all, if the kids are going to drag their toys around their living rooms, wouldn’t porcelain tiles take that beating better? However, any material other than wood for the living room will feel substandard. Thankfully, you can now have more options for wood flooring.
You will be better off choosing natural engineered maple hardwood flooring. Engineered hardwood floors top solid wood because of its affordability and durability. It mimics the look of solid wood such as oak, maple, Brazilian walnut, or tigerwood. The latter two are more scratch- and dent-resistant than oak and maple. On average, engineered wood only costs around $4 per square foot. That’s more than a dollar cheaper than solid wood, which costs $5.86 per square foot.
Engineered wood will shrink and swell less compared to solid wood. It can also be installed directly over the concrete subfloor or an already existing flooring. It’s one of the easiest types of flooring to install, making it the perfect choice for renovation projects.
Kitchen
Sure, hardwood flooring will look great in the kitchen, but it is prone to dents and swelling. The kitchen floor needs the toughest and most durable flooring material you can find. The best material would be porcelain tiles because they are resistant to scratching and dents. Remember that there is heavy foot traffic in the kitchen-dragging trash cans across the floor and the scratching it will get from chairs and tables.
Porcelain tiles come in a variety of shapes, colors, sizes, and textures. You can go for small-format hex tiles for a traditional early 20th-century house or the more modern faux reclaimed ash planks for countryside homes. You can also choose luxury vinyl planks if you are on a budget, but the porcelain tiles look better.
Bathroom and Laundry Room
The challenge for the flooring of your bathroom and laundry room is not the foot traffic or the sunlight that stream into the room. It’s the water from splashes, cleaning, drips, leaks, and toilet overflows. Obviously, wood is not going to work here. The top choice here is porcelain tiles as marble can discolor fast.
Porcelain tiles can last longer than any other material. In fact, some will say that it is the only choice homeowners have for the bathroom and laundry room. To avoid slipping over the floor surface, choose textured porcelain tiles. If it gets too cold in your area, you can install an electric heating element under the tiles.
Basement
The problem with basement flooring is that it can constantly become damp because of the moisture from below the ground. That’s why wood will not work for this surface. Homeowners can go either with porcelain tiles again or vinyl tiles. Since this is the basement and no one needs to see it, you can go for the cheaper vinyl tiles. It has no wood particles, which means it won’t swell because of the dampness.
Since basement tiles can feel uncomfortable cold, you can install an electric floor warming system that’s connected to a timer. Depending on the vibe you want for your basement, there are a lot of options for vinyl tiles for you. A clear runner-up to vinyl is laminated tiles, though that’s only because it is way cheaper.
Homeowners should pay special attention to the flooring materials they use for the rooms because of the environmental conditions to which they are subjected to. They have to choose the right flooring for each room so they can minimize the maintenance and repair costs in the future. Researching the materials will go a long way toward a longer-lasting and more durable home.
