The daunting question plenty of customers ask us is “Which floor covering is right for me”? The answer to this type of question is no easy one, however, there are many choices right for each and every application. The easiest to handle is which sub floor you’re on, as the sub floor will determine whether or not to use specific products.
Consumers with wood sub floors are open to numerous products such as Solid wood flooring, engineered wood flooring, floating laminate floors, vinyl, tile & carpet. The disadvantage to wood sub floors over concrete is the flexibility requires a cement board such as DuRock to be used underneath tile to avoid cracking. when installing vinyl plank, it’s often required to use 1/4″ wood boards to even out the cracks and defects in the ply-wood. A wood sub floor poses great results for solid wood flooring which cannot be performed easily with a concrete sub floor. Solid wood flooring may be nailed or stapled in to the wood sub floor, which is a perfect installation for hardwood flooring. Moisture is generally easy with a wood sub floor and will likely not cause any cupping issues or de-laminating problems together with your solid wood flooring.
Consumers with a concrete sub floor have just as many positives as they do negatives for installation of the product. A concrete sub floor is often smooth and can be used for just about any product all of the time without the requirements such as durock for tile. Tile flooring may be laid directly to the concrete, saving a lot of money in the installation process. Vinyl products such as sheet vinyl & vinyl plank will go easily over concrete and will need less preparation work to help make the floor as smooth as possible. Usually the one downfall of a concrete sub floor is that they often contain moisture from the environment underneath of them. Solid hardwood flooring is very sensitive to moisture and may start cupping at the edges of each board once moisture has entered the wood. A good treatment for a semi-wet concrete slab is using engineered wood flooring. The structure of engineered wood floors allows for harsher environments because they are built to withstand more abuse. Another great method and reassurance is having an adhesive that works in high moisture applications such as Wakol our Stauf adhesive. A moisture barrier or concrete sealer tend to be required and/or recommended by producer of the product to be installed over concrete slab due to numerous moisture related problems.
When the sub floor has been addressed, the next question is often in the case of a wood product, have you been thinking about smooth or hand-scraped. Smooth woods are traditional and might have square edges that simulated a sand and finished hardwood flooring, micro-beveled to show the edge of the board with a slight edge, or kissed to around the edges of each board. Hand-scraped wood flooring brings a contemporary or rustic look to any home with respect to the style of the hand-scraping. A hand-scraped wood has grooves in the plank and might have different levels of imperfections that give the wood character. Every wood floor has it’s own special characteristics that could produce a home look the very best it can.
A next question we often get is “what color should I choose?” We often recommend lighter colored flooring since it gives the eye and 榻榻米地墊 illusion which makes a room seem larger. When picking out a tile, along with of the tile can set the mood for the entire room, like a neutral beige or cream will give calming vibes or even a rusty orange or brown brings our a Tuscan look to your home. A contemporary tile like a solid glass tile really can shine in the right application or even a traditional black and white solid tile can bring back an older nostalgic era. Hardwood flooring coloring can often be an arduous decision as there are so many stains in the industry. The natural color of each wood can very from one extreme to a different which frequently will cause darker woods to not have many available colors to select from. Traditional oaks generally have 6-8 color choices which start at a blonde color and go to a smokey gray or midnight black coloring. We recommend shaping a room to the ground that’s in it. You are able to always repaint, replacing a ground may be costly and plenty of time unaffordable, especially in regards to the cost of a gallon of paint versus a ground being removed, prepared an installed. Large rooms often look good with a darker color, that could give an abundant and grand look to a room, where smaller rooms showing off lighter colors often give the illusion that the are bigger than they really are.