Four popular types of flooring for living rooms

The living room is one of the most important spaces in a home. As the name implies, it is where most of everyday life within the home will take place, so you need to be happy with every aspect of it.

When it comes to selecting flooring for a living room, there will be multiple requirements to consider. First of all, it needs to be hard wearing enough to be able to cope with a lot of footfall, sometimes including that of pets with claws. Second, it must be easy to maintain and clean, as it will inevitably get dirty more quickly than the floor in other rooms.

A living room floor should also be comfortable to walk on without shoes and add to the warmth of the room. Finally, you need to like what it looks like alongside your other living room furnishings.

Read on to find out what the most popular floor materials for living rooms are.

Carpet

Carpet is always a very popular selection for putting on the floor of a living room. For one thing, it provides people with a wide range of colours and patterns, so there is a good chance of being able to find a carpet that blends well with the walls and ceilings of your living room. That is not the only big benefit that opting for carpeting will give you though.

It also has a cushioning effect that makes it one of the softest flooring materials to walk on when you are not wearing shoes. Furthermore, it can act as an insulator, helping to keep warmth in the room. That is a real advantage if you live in an area in the north of the country, such as Chester, where the autumns and winters can be very cold. Choosing carpets can cut energy costs, as well as making walking in your living room pleasant.

However, they can also be vulnerable to damage from pet or heavy boots. Picking a carpet made of up to 80% wool will give you a more hard-wearing surface than a purely synthetic one.

Laminate

Laminate will be a great choice if you dream of something like a solid wood living room floor, but your budget won’t quite run to it. Laminate flooring can be manufactured to accurately replicate the look of wood, tiling or stone at a much lower cost. It is a floor material that has been improved a great deal over the past few years and is now much more popular in living rooms.

Putting down a laminate floor is also quite a simple procedure compared with some other surfaces and it can be wiped clean of stains or spillages very quickly. If you choose this surface for your living room, make sure to talk to experienced flooring professionals first though, so that you get laminate that is thick and hard wearing enough to cope with all of the traffic.

Luxury vinyl tile

This is a variant of vinyl flooring that is thicker and more durable than standard vinyl. Similarly to laminate, luxury vinyl tile (LVT) is a type of floor that can be made to resemble other, more expensive ones such as wood. Indeed, due to the way that it is manufactured, it can actually recreate the look of wooden planks more closely than virtually any other type of floor.

Alternatively, the vinyl tiles can be printed with patterns that suit the decor of your living room walls. Whether you want ornate designs or a simulated rustic look, it is possible with LVT floors. LVT is also a surface that is very low maintenance, as it can be wiped clean simply, and is resistance to water damage and scratching. All of this combined makes it a low cost, durable choice for living rooms that can be made to suit your specifications.

Porcelain or ceramic tile

Ceramic and porcelain tiles tend to be associated more with bathroom or kitchen floors, but they will be an effective choice for a living room too. Again, they are floors that can be wiped clean should they get mud or any other stains on them and they are both types of floor surface that should be able to withstand heavy levels of footfall.

If there is one reason why people do not fit ceramic or porcelain tiles in their living rooms as often as vinyl tiles, it is because they can be quite hard underfoot. However, it is easy to counteract the effect of that by putting some rugs down on the living room floor to soften the feel. These will also help in zoning the living room space.

Any of these four floor surfaces will make for a fine choice in a living room. It is simply a matter of deciding what your priorities are and speaking to a reputable professional for detailed guidance.

What is the best underlay for laminate flooring?

Laminate flooring in Chester and North Wales is popular due to its looks, durability and cost-effectiveness. However, using a suitable underlay is important to ensure that the floor lasts a long time. Without an underlay, laminate flooring can put pressure on the joints between planks and allow moisture from the subfloor to reach the planks. This can decrease the life of the floor.

Some laminate flooring comes with a built-in underlay, but for those without, it's important to choose a good-quality underlay. Interior design journalist Rachel Ogden advises that the type of underlay to install depends on several factors, including the type of room, budget and footfall.

For a guest room or attic with little footfall and no dampness, a basic, inexpensive foam underlay may be sufficient. If noise is an issue, choose a sound-dampening underlay that can prevent sounds from being heard in rooms below and reduce reflected sounds.

For busy living rooms, choose a good-quality wood-fibre underlay with insulating qualities that will help cut down heating bills. This type of underlay is effective at both adding insulation and deadening sounds. An underlay should have a rating for its sound and heat insulating efficiency.

For areas subject to dampness such as kitchens, use a damp protection underlay. A cushion underlay can smooth out small bumps and lumps, making the floor more level.

Some laminate manufacturers recommend specific underlays for their products. It's also worth getting expert advice from a laminate floor retailer and installer.

How to deal with sagging floors

If a floor looks uneven or bounces when trodden on, it is probably caused by sagging floors. If you suffer this issue, it’s not a good idea to ignore it as it will become worse over time.

There are several causes of sagging floors. Water damage is a major cause. Leaks, storms and floods can mean that water soaks into the floor and damages it. Termites and other pests can cause wood floors to deteriorate. After eliminating the pests, the floor will need repairing. A sagging or sunken concrete floor can be caused by building subsidence, tree roots or leaking drains.

Repairing a sagging floor is a skilled job best left to a professional expert on floor repairs. If the cause of sagging is ongoing, such as persistent leaks or subsidence, this must be rectified before repairing the floor.

Repairing a sagging floor can be expensive, but the cost may be covered by household insurance.

Before installing new carpets or laminate flooring in homes in Chester and North Wales, it's worth asking the floor installer to inspect the state of the subfloor. This is especially important in older homes.

After the subfloor has been repaired, it may be necessary to install new floor coverings. It may be possible to salvage the existing floor coverings such as tiles, carpets, vinyl or laminate and reinstall them if they are not damaged. It could be a good opportunity to update the room with new floor coverings. Visit a local flooring retailer to see their wide range of flooring options.

What are the best eco-friendly flooring options?

In this era of environmental awareness, more people are starting to think about the impact of their everyday choices on the world around us. One of the areas where it is possible to have a positive environmental effect is in the choice of floors that you opt for in your home.

When it comes to eco-friendly flooring choices, the matter really boils down to two factors: how the floors are manufactured and how long they will last. It is about whether the process of making the floors harms the environment or not, whether the raw materials can be recycled and how quickly the floor will need to be replaced.

Read on to learn about the best floor choices if you want to make a ‘green’ statement in your home.

Cork

Cork is universally recognised as one of the best floor choices in terms of its impact on the environment. To start with, the material used to make it is taken from cork oak trees, which can have their bark stripped each decade with no long-term damage being done to them. The material is also fully biodegradable and able to be recycled once the floor has reached the end of its natural lifespan. However, cork floors tend to last for a long time, as the material is very durable.

That earns it full marks in terms of eco-friendliness and makes it a fine choice if that is a priority for you. It is a floor that can be fitted very easily, and has a number of other advantages too. Cork is warm and soft underfoot, which is useful in places like Chester when its especially cold. Cork is ideal for bathrooms because it is resistant to water damage.

Solid Wood

Solid hardwood flooring is another very eco-friendly choice for a home. Unlike engineered wood, it is completely natural so there is little in the manufacturing process that will harm the environment. Again, wood is a material that is totally biodegradable, being a natural earth resource, and it can be recycled for use as fuel or for other purposes when it is no longer being used for the floors of your home.

If properly looked after, solid wood floors will also be a very durable and long-lasting floor surface. Some homeowners choose to put down rugs in rooms where people will be walking over the wood in boots or shoes or where the claws of dogs might cause scratching. Wood can also be rotted by water, so it will be better for living rooms or bedrooms than bathrooms, but solid wood floors have the further advantage of looking great and being easy to wipe clean.

Bamboo

Many people think of bamboo as wood, but it is actually a type of grass that makes for a highly sustainable floor choice. It has a very rapid growth cycle, so it is soon restored after being cut for use as a floor material. While it may not sound like it would be especially hard wearing, bamboo is actually surprisingly durable too – even more so than some types of wood.

Like solid wood floors, it is also a wholly natural earth resource and thus is biodegradable and recyclable after its lifespan has ended. All of that makes it another floor option that passes every eco-friendly test as well as one that is a cost-effective selection. Bamboo can mimic the beautiful look of wood floors due to the dark caramel and earth shades that it is available in.

Like wood, it is best used in rooms where there is no danger of excessive water spilling on it though. That is because this can cause it to warp.

Wool Carpeting

Whether carpets are eco-friendly or not depends entirely on what material they are made from. Carpets made from synthetic fibres fail most environmental tests, both in their manufacture and their afterlife, but the same is not true for a material like wool.

This is a natural resource that is sustainable and fully biodegradable. As long as it has natural jute added as backing, it can be broken down rather than ending up in landfills. Wool carpeting will also not give off the fumes that synthetic carpets do that are caused by the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are utilised during their manufacturing process.

Wool carpets may be a little more costly than synthetic ones, but they will last for longer, which is another eco-friendly point in their favour. They also make for a floor choice that is very warm and comfortable underfoot, ideal for areas that are used a lot such as living rooms and bedrooms. The one room to avoid fitting them in is the bathroom, as they can be damaged by water.

You can contact flooring professionals who have years of experience to get more details about these eco-friendly floor choices.

How to get free carpets for your new home in North Wales

Many people struggle to save up a deposit to buy their first home and often have little left over to spend on furniture, appliances, and floor coverings. According to Olivia Marshall, a consumer affairs reporter for The Sun newspaper, it is possible to get free carpets for your North Wales home.

Marshall reports that some builders and developers offer financial incentives to help first-time buyers purchase items for a new home. She interviewed Harry Smith and Henry Broad, both in their twenties, who bought a house in Accrington, Lancashire for £145,995. They work in telecoms and are classified as key workers. This qualified them for a first-time buyer’s scheme offered by developers Gleeson, who gave them £1,000. This paid for extra plug sockets, fencing and new carpets.

The offers available for new home buyers vary considerably on who builds the homes, the qualifying conditions and how much they are offering. Many new home builders in North Wales have generous incentives. For instance, Bellway has a development in Wrexham where home buyers can receive up to £20,000 to spend on a new house - enough for luxury wool carpets in every room and much more to make a dream interior.

Help to Buy schemes are also available in Wales, enabling first-time buyers to move into a new home with just a 5% deposit. By paying a reduced deposit, many buyers find that they are able to afford new carpets and furniture for their home.