Home Decorating Tips Fun with Flooring Ideas

Posted by admin on October 23rd, 2008 filed in HomeDecor


The wide range of flooring options available today probably makes your head buzz every time you contemplate getting a new floor. At the same time, it also means you can find the perfect flooring idea for your home or office/place of work. Thus you can take your pick of wood or wood laminates, ceramic tiles, slate/stone, vinyl flooring, carpets, stone and marble, etc.

And then there are the sub-sections: if you choose wood, what is it to be, maple, oak, pine or teak? Do you like black, white, Connemara, rough finish, or polished marble? Of course, a lot depends on your budget and individual taste, but here’s a ready guide to the broad categories of flooring available on the market:

  • Laminate: Provided you cannot install a solid wood floor, wood laminates are a great substitute. They are available in as many colors and species as wood, and in as many styles, but the way they are constructed makes them last longer and withstand moisture and traffic better than wood. That makes it an excellent flooring idea for the bathroom

  • Linoleum: Linoleum, the flooring of choice for the disco era, is well on its way back. An all-natural flooring material made from linseed oil, cork, stone and natural resins, linoleum is available in a wide range of colors and patterns, and it is as durable as they come. What’s more, exposure to sunlight, which fades most other flooring materials, actually makes the colors in a linoleum floor richer. So you have a flooring option that is easy to care for, wears extremely well and lasts forever

  • Vinyl Tiles: Perfect flooring idea for kitchens, bathrooms and family rooms. Inexpensive, easy to install, and available in a vast range of colors and patterns, vinyl tiles also wear well, and are easy to maintain

  • Ceramic Tiles: No longer confined to bathrooms, ceramic tiles today come in rich tones, and include a range of patterns that is hard to incorporate on any other material. They can still provide excellent flooring ideas for the bathroom, but are not at all out of place in the kitchen, the patio or by the poolside

  • Slate Tiles: Slate looks like stone - well, it is stone - but has a number of advantages over stone floors. For one thing, its smooth surface holds a glossy finish well and is comfortable underfoot. Besides, it is available in its natural colors and is a great natural flooring idea

  • Wooden Flooring: Time-tested, beautiful and stylish, wood floors suit any decor. What’s more, with proper care, a wood floor lasts a lifetime, and gives you numerous flooring ideas courtesy its variety of patterns

  • Parquet Flooring: This is a particularly elegant and stylish flooring idea. Different colors, types or species of wood are cut and stained and fitted to create a pattern. The pattern may be overall, or it may be used to accent a border, corner or center of the floor

  • Stone Floors: Marble, slate, limestone and travertine are flooring ideas that are growing in popularity. Marble is, of course, particularly popular in public buildings

  • Carpets: Wall to wall carpets will always be in fashion. Modern choices include natural wool or cotton, acrylic, olefin and nylon, as well as jute and other natural fibers

  • Rugs: Floor and area rugs can brighten a dark space. They can also add a touch of luxury or elegance, depending on color and style. They go particularly well with wood and stone floors

    Tips before you buy your flooring

  • Draw an outline of the room or rooms. Indicate where the entrances are placed

  • Measure the room accurately with a measuring tape and write down its width and length. Remember, smaller print patterns can make the room seem a lot bigger

  • Take into account adjoining rooms and the flooring on those rooms and make sure you harmonize the new flooring with the old

  • If too much natural light enters the room, you might consider a laminated floor, and vinyl, ceramic or porcelain tiles

  • Coordinate the color and style of your flooring with your furniture, curtains and wallpaper

  • The foot traffic that a room gets should dictate your flooring idea. A room with a high volume of traffic needs more durable flooring

  • Similarly, a room used mainly for leisure activities can accommodate relatively delicate flooring materials

  • Remember, pets may damage flooring, so factor that in. equally, the number of children in the house will also impact flooring

  • Lighter colors make rooms seem bigger

  • How much will the new flooring cost? Is sub-floor preparation part of the quoted price? Also, is the quoted price inclusive of the installation? Make sure all the necessary materials are included in the quoted price

    Now you have your flooring ideas in place, go play!

    Tania Penwell is a professional writer who provides information for A1 Wood Flooring on cork flooring and laminate flooring.

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    • Environment-Friendly Home Improvement Flooring Products Gain Mass Appeal

    Posted by admin on October 11th, 2008 filed in HomeDecor


    One of the first things home owners think of when embarking on a home improvement project is pulling up that dusty, stained and frayed old carpet. The next step is deciding what to put in its place - new carpet or some other type of flooring.

    A trendy new craze sweeping the country is to replace existing carpet with environmentally friendly flooring such as reclaimed wood, linoleum, cork or bamboo. Such types of flooring are not only helpful to the environment, but are also coveted for their exquisite beauty, texture and form.

    People are fast realizing the dangers of using products for the home that can be detrimental to the environment and to the residents who live in the home. Jumping on the bandwagon, architects, builders and decorators are suggesting flooring products that protect the environment and the people who live and work in the buildings.

    Advantages of Choosing Environment-Friendly Flooring Over Carpeting

    If you’ve ever pulled up used carpeting in a home or other heavily-trafficked area, you’ve probably been aghast at the debris and filth hidden in the carpet and padding. The truth is that no matter how fanatical you are about vacuuming and shampooing your carpet, residue, mold and mildew will accumulate in the fibers beneath. The carpet then becomes an allergen magnet, hording germs that can affect humans and pets who come in contact with it.

    Besides the advantage of avoiding allergens, the durability and beauty of wood or other environmentally correct floorings remains undisputed. It is easily cleaned and comes in a wide variety of patterns and colors to fit any d

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    Taking Solar Into Account When Designing Your Home Improvements

    Posted by admin on July 23rd, 2008 filed in HomeDecor


    Using the sun to heat up a home is growing by leaps and bounds in popularity these days. To really save money with solar, the best way is to design your home or improvements with solar in mind.

    Taking Solar Into Account When Designing Your Home Improvements

    In this case, we are not talking about using active solar panels to heat your home. We are merely talking about orienting your home in a particular way as well as emphasizing certain features. While this may sound odd at first, it is an extremely popular and cost effective energy production method used throughout the world.

    To pursue this strategy, you must pay careful attention to how you design your house or improvements. One of the biggest errors made by people is the failure to take in all aspects of home heating and cooling. This can lead to a situation where you are producing far too much solar heat and the house becomes an oven. Get it wrong in the other direction and you don’t have nearly enough heat. Here are the key issues to consider.

    The first issue, the site location, is almost always overlooked. Ideally, you want unobstructed sunlight to hit the south side of the home for at least six hours in the middle of the day. Contrary to popular opinion, it doesn’t matter what part of the United States you live in. There is sufficient sun exposure everywhere, although areas heavy with fog and cloud cover may be problematic. Regardless, the home must receive the aforementioned amount of sunlight. If it doesn’t, you are not going to be happy with the results.

    The second issue many people miss out on is commonly known as the axis orientation. In the Northern Hemisphere, the south wall of structures will receive the most sun exposure. To efficiently use this energy, your home must be oriented to expose the longest wall of the structure to the south. The more surface area you have facing the sun, the more heat and light you will be able to generate in the home. On the other hand, if you orient a short side to the sun, it is going to produce less heat and be harder to circulate it through the length of the home.

    The third issue ties in into axis orientation. To produce heat, you must have a vast majority of the windows on the south side of the home. Unless you are using a solar capture wall, it makes little sense to orient your home correctly without letting the sunlight in. Conversely, you need minimize windows on the north side of the home or at least use super energy efficient windows to keep heat from escaping. You don’t want to create a wind tunnel from the south to north side of the structure as air temperatures try to balance out!

    You may have some doubts about how much heat a properly planned structure will produce. Hyperbole aside, your home will cook. The sun is incredibly powerful. Imagine sitting in your car on a sunny day with the windows rolled up and no air conditioning. The same thing will happen with your home.

    To combat excessive heat, you should include some mechanism for reducing the amount of sun coming into the home. The easiest answer is to put curtains or some such thing on the interior, but it doesn’t always work for large bay windows. To resolve this problem, you should put some type of a retractable overhang on the exterior of the home. You can install the roller under the lip of the roof. They don’t look nearly as cheesy as they used to and you’ll be happy you did so when summer rolls around.

    Taking advantage of the sun for heating is not particularly complicated. If you keep the above issues in mind, you’ll be able to smile when your neighbors complain about their utility bills.

    Rick Chapo is with SolarCompanies.com, a directory of solar energy companies. Visit us to read more articles on solar power and passive solar floor plans.

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