Melinda Eaton

Thinking about updating your home flooring? Good idea! Flooring is one of the best investments you can make in your home and one that you will use everyday that you live there. There are several things to consider before searching for your new flooring options, and it is best to think about them before you step out your front door. Preparing before you shop will make your experience much easier and more enjoyable. Function - How you use the room in question is the first consideration. If the room is a heavy traffic area, such as a kitchen, an entry, a heavily traveled pathway from, for example, entry to kitchen, you should be looking at a hard surface floor. Hard surface flooring options include ceramic tile, hardwood, laminate, cork, vinyl, linoleum, vinyl composition tile (VCT), luxury vinyl tiles, and even leather. Hard surface floors will wear much better and be much easier to care for in these areas. A lot of people choose a soft surface, carpet, in lower traffic areas for comfort and cost reasons. Recently, more and more people have been choosing hard surfaces for these areas too, for aesthetic and allergic reasons. Budget - Unfortunately, most of us have a budget that we have to work within. The easiest way to figure what flooring options are within your budget, is to determine how much area you need to cover, or the square footage. To do this, measure the length and the width of the room in feet, and multiply these two figures. This will give you the square footage. Keep in mind that this will be an approximation. The floor store that you work with will come to measure the room themselves and give you an exact amount. Your own measure, however, taken to a store, will allow your salesperson/designer to give you a good approximation while you are at the store. This will allow you to more easily make a determination of which flooring options will fit within your budget. Color and Design - This, of course, is the fun part! Some people have a very good idea of the look they want and how to achieve it. Other people just don't know what to do! If you are one of the latter, there is help available. You can, of course, hire a designer to shop for you or with you. Most good floor stores do have designers on staff and they are very experienced in assisting people to make choices.