July 2010
Improve your home with wooden flooring
We all like to carry out home improvements now and again to keep our properties looking good. The first improvement that many people complete is giving the walls a new lick of paint, but installing new
wood flooring can really help to transform a room.
Your floors can become tired and dirty very quickly, especially if they are carpeted, and getting new flooring can revitalise a room.
Wooden flooring in particular can bring an old room to life and make the whole area in question feel much newer and more vibrant.
Carpet is largely a material of the past when it comes to flooring. This represents a seismic transformation in consumers' flooring preferences as there was a time when carpet was the floor material of choice and was the only material widely available.
Those days have long gone though and homeowners can now get their hands on a number of different flooring materials, with wooden flooring proving to be the one of the most popular. There are many reasons why wood flooring has risen in popularity in recent times, but one of its main advantages is how easy it is to maintain and clean.
This is one of the primary concerns for young professionals who have little time to spend cleaning in their hectic lives. When you get home after a long day at work you want to spend it relaxing in front of the TV rather than having to clean the floor.
Thus, wood flooring is ideal as it hardly requires any maintenance at all. Wooden flooring will stay looking as good as new for an extended period of time and all that you need to do to keep it sparkling is to give it a wipe with a damp cloth now and again.
Any dirt that accumulates can be easily vacuumed up or collected using a dust pan and brush so that you have a clean home environment. As a result, wooden flooring is also perfect for allergy sufferers as very little dust can collect and remain hidden in the material without you even knowing.
This is in stark contrast to carpet that can harbour lots of dust for a long time. A real vigorous vacuum is often required to get your carpet clean and free of dust and even after that it will never look as good as it did when you first had it fitted.
It is pretty easy to tell approximately how old a carpet is as the material will become discoloured over time. This is a result of all the stains that have accumulated that can never be completely removed and leave your carpet looking old and tired.
Everyday stains such as wine spillages or tomato sauce are very difficult to lift from the carpet despite the wide range of products that are available. This means that they become ingrained, and by trying hard to remove them you can even damage the material.
As a result, wooden flooring is far more convenient than carpet and can stand up to the rigours of everyday life much better. This has helped wood floors to become more popular as people start to see the benefits they offer.
There are plenty of after care products for your wood floor to help you keep it looking immaculate if you do make a mess. Floor care products will allow you to keep your wooden floor in the best condition possible and can assist you in ensuring that your floor will last a lifetime.
The convenience of wood flooring is one of the reasons for its emergence as a trendy material for floors in every room of the house. The versatility of wooden floors has also helped them to become more popular, as they can work equally as well in your kitchen as in your bedroom.
This means that your house can look far slicker. No longer do you have to have a mismatch of carpet and lino in your house, but instead you can have wooden flooring throughout and just pick the style and colour of wood to suit each individual room.
There are plenty of different colours of wood flooring to choose from. There is a wide selection of both light and dark woods, so you can choose light colours to help bring light to a room or select a dark colour to bring a feeling of warmth.
Walnut is one of the darker colours that may take your fancy, while a smoked oak coloured floor is ideal if you are after a dark floor. At the other end of the spectrum are white floors that have been oiled for a really professional looking finish.
Whichever colour you choose you can rest assured that your floor will be warm even in the winter. This is because you can install under floor heating to ensure that even on the coldest nights your feet will not have to walk on a cold floor.
The specially designed system is a film that is put underneath the wood floor so that you can control the temperature. The electrical system is completely silent as well so you will not be disturbed when you are trying to get some sleep for the long day that you have ahead.
If caring for the environment is something that you feel strongly about then a wood floor can tick all the boxes. The wooden floor that you choose can be made using wood from sustainably managed forests, so long as you purchase your floor from an environmentally responsible company.
Wooden floors thus meet environmental concerns and the fact that you can keep a wood floor for dozens of years will help you to save money in the long run as well. Along with the convenience offered by the natural material that needs minimal maintenance, this has helped wooden flooring to become the floor of choice for a number of people and firmly established it as a trendy floor to have in your home.
July 2010
Wood flooring offers unrivalled convenience
Convenience is something that appeals to everyone. We are always after anything that will make our everyday lives much easier. This certainly applies to cleaning, and generally, the less cleaning you have to do the better. This is where the convenience of
wood flooring can be invaluable.
There was a time when
wooden flooring was fairly uncommon in UK households. Throughout the 20th century carpet was the primary material installed in British houses and this was the material of choice for a lot of people as far as
flooring was concerned.
The end of the century marked a distinct change in trends in flooring and wooden floors started to become more prominent and preferable to carpet. Northern European countries first saw the advantages offered by wood flooring, but now Britain has caught up and a large proportion of new flats and apartments are now installed with wooden flooring.
Wooden flooring is most definitely the material of the present and the future as far as floors are concerned and conversely carpet is starting to become a thing of the past. While many people may have grown up with carpet in their childhood, you are likely to spend the rest of your life in houses that are kitted out with wooden floors.
Wood flooring is in fashion right now and this is unlikely to change due to the benefits that it offers. It is these perks that have helped to see a surge in the popularity of wooden flooring and is also why wooden floors are much trendier than carpets at the moment.
A major plus point of wooden flooring is the convenience they offer householders. Wood floors are far easier to clean than traditional carpet. They require little maintenance and when compared to carpets they are generally far more user-friendly.
You often hear tales of how people have tried to clean a white wine stain on their carpet by using red wine to lift the stain from the material. This method may have actually worked, but your carpet would never be the same colour again and over time it would become dirty and generally discoloured.
There are no such problems with wood flooring as the material can simply be wiped clean. Whether you spill wine or beer, gravy or tomato sauce, all stains can just be wiped off using a wet cloth and your floor will continue to look as good as new. Another material that offers the same ease of cleaning as wood flooring is lino, but this is far less desirable. Lino is generally looked upon as old-fashioned, has a far less slick finish than wooden flooring and thus has also reduced in popularity as wood floors have started to emerge.
Partly because wood floors are easy to clean they have become the material of choice for flooring. Not only is wood flooring being installed in new houses, flats and apartments but it is also one of the first priorities for people that are making home improvements.
Ripping up your carpet and putting wooden flooring in its place can immediately help to make the room in question feel much cleaner and fresher. Wood flooring doesn’t harbour dirt in the way that carpet does, either, which is why wood flooring is much more suitable for allergy sufferers. Dust and dirt cannot become ingrained in the floor and any dust that does accumulate can be easily vacuumed up without having to put a lot of effort in to cleaning the floor.
Wooden flooring can be seen as the natural choice for your home. The breathable material will last you a lifetime and the natural material can utilise wood that has been purchased from sustainably managed forests, making it environmentally friendly.
The fact that wood flooring is long-lasting will help you economically as well. By not having to replace your floor due to wear and tear you can save money, and you will not have to change the floor for fashion reasons either as wood flooring will still be trendy for many years to come.
Wood floors also have the advantage of bringing light to a room. Any light sources, whether it is the sun outside or light bulbs inside, will reflect much better off wood flooring and thus any room with wooden floors will seem much lighter and brighter all year round.
When it comes to choosing a design for your wooden floor you aren't short of choices. There are dozens of different wood colours to choose from and all of them have subtle differences.
If having a bright room is one of your main concerns then you can choose a light wood colour for your floor such as maple, birch or ash. A light colour of wood will not be suitable in all rooms though and darker colours are available. Dark wood colours such as walnut and panga panga can help to make a room feel cosier and might go well with your furniture and fittings.
To help you choose a colour of wood that will match the room in question you can head online and use the flooring visualiser. You can choose your room, select the colour of the walls and then see which wood colours go well and which should probably be avoided.
The colour is not the only important choice you will have to make as you can also choose between a couple of different styles of wood flooring. Strip floors feature much smaller pieces of material than the plank floors that will be to many customers' liking.
By investing in a wood floor for your home you will be staying right up to date with the latest trends and make your life much easier. Not only is wood flooring easier to clean than carpet, but it will also last a lot longer and hardly wear at all, leaving you with a floor that looks as good as new for a long period of time.
July 2010
Wood flooring 'is eternal', says designers
Homeowners should consider
wood flooring ahead of any other options, a group of Canadian designers has said.
Speaking to the Canadian Press, Genevieve Gorder, Candice Olsen and Vern Yip, who judge the work of new designers each week on HGTV's "Design Star", all said wooden floors are their preferred material, with Gorder describing it as "the one medium that is eternal."
"It's been in interiors since the beginning of time and it's sitting in our front yards," she said. "There's nothing else like it."
Despite this timelessness, all three added that wooden flooring was at the very forefront of good interior design.
“Wood is both natural and trend-proof,” Olson said, and can bring a much-needed warmth and timelessness to modern rooms. “Even people who love modern style, she said, “don't want a home where everything looks like George Jetson lives there."
When given the choice between real wood and a laminate flooring, each designer said they preferred the genuine article, with the overall consensus that “nothing quite replaces a true wood floor.”
Interestingly though, it's not just wood flooring that's been getting fresh attention recently, but wood finish as a whole. According to Yip, it makes a great material to cover walls and ceilings, while old wooden platforms can also be hung up as art.
"Any time you have an entire wall of one material, wood or something else, it's so striking," he said.
This new attitude to wood is far from unique. Earlier this year The Guardian’s Huma Quereshi said that while the overriding style of the last decade was a timeless mix of “whitewashed brick walls teamed with wooden floors”, interiors styles are growing “more individual and less prescriptive”.
And as hardwood flooring is so perfect for those who like to redesign, refresh or just experiment – it can be retreated with a new finish up to five times – it should be no real surprise that it's such a popular material.
According to The Times' Gwenda Brophy, it's our attitude to how wood can be used here the UK that's changed. Gone, she says, is the “spirit-sapping pine panelling” of yesterday, and in its place a more imaginative – and very grown-up – approach in a number of contemporary homes. And that can only be good news.
Find out more about
wood flooring.