Picking the right furniture for your home is very important, but picking the right flooring is the most important thing when you’re moving to a new home, or you’re just remodeling it.
Flooring is an essential element of any room in your home, so if you’re in a search for the right one, you need to take some time, learn more about flooring materials and decide which one will fit the best to your home.
Most popular materials are solid hardwood, laminate, vinyl, bamboo, ceramic tiles, and cork.
Nowadays technology ensured that is really hard to tell which flooring is the genuine material, and which one is manufactured imitation, so the design is not the most important thing to worry about. The important thing is its functionality. Also, you need to consider a few questions before your decision like:
- Do you have children or pets and if not, will you have them in next ten years?
- What are your cleaning habits and how much care are you willing to put to the floor?
- What is your budget?
- Do you spend a lot of time in a room for which you’re picking the flooring?
- Is this a high-traffic space?
- What’s the humidity in this room, and will the floor be exposed to moisture regularly?
- How long do you expect for the floor to last?
OK, now then you thought all of these questions through, you’re ready to learn more about the most popular flooring materials, and to pick the right one for your home. Here’s the overview of six popular floorings, its pros and cons, and its price ranges per square feet.
Hardwood
The traditional and favorite flooring for many people is surely a hardwood, thanks to the quality, beauty, and natural and warm feeling. The most popular choice is surely oak, but lately, the other types of hardwood (e.g. Tasmanian oak, cherry, maple or mahogany) are becoming more popular in flooring.
Hardwood floor is available in a few styles like parquet, plank or as a prefinished board that you can install by yourself.
The price range: $2.49/sq ft to $32.00/sq ft. /sq ft.
Laminate
Laminate (also called floating wood tile), is more affordable than a hardwood flooring, which makes it the most popular flooring choice around. It is composed of different wood-based materials fused together with a lamination process.
Laminate is easier to install and maintain than a traditional hardwood flooring, so if you have pets, maybe it’s a better choice than a hardwood, believe me, since I have a pug, cleaning and maintaining a hardwood is a nightmare lol.
One of popular laminate variations is also engineered wood floor. It’s a bit more expensive because its top layer is a real wood, so it looks more convincing than a regular laminate.
The price range: $0.93 /sq ft – $57.39 /sq ft.
Vinyl
Vinyl is also a popular floor material. Vinyl is a great choice for a room with moisture problems like a basement, kitchen or bathroom. It’s also a great floor material for a space with high traffic because of its ease of maintenance, durability and affordable price.
The great thing about this material is that when you install it the right way, it can be easily removed and replaced when the damage happens.
Price range: $0.49 /sq ft – $30.09 /sq ft.
Cork
Cork floors were very popular in 1960’s and ’70s. After then, they weren’t used much until the 2000’s when the retro look became in again. This flooring comes from the bark of cork trees, that is found in northern Africa and Europe.
A great thing about this material is its flexibility, and the comfortable underfoot feeling so it’s perfect for a room where you spend a lot of your time, like a kitchen. However, you need to take into consideration that this material is not a great idea for spaces with moisture problems like a basement, bathroom or a laundry room because the water can cause damage to it.
Price range: $4.76 /sq ft – $15.00 /sq ft.
Bamboo
Bamboo floor is manufactured from the bamboo plant, and it’s used as an alternative to hardwood flooring because of its similarities to it.
The bamboo plant is a woody grass that’s fast-growing and really strong, so the bamboo flooring is very strong, durable and it’s resistant to insects and moisture.
Price range: $3.69 /sq ft – $9.89 /sq ft
Tiles
A tile is a manufactured piece of a hard material like a stone, ceramic, metal and even a glass. Most popular choice for tiles is a natural stone (e.g. marble or granite).
If you have a limited budget, the porcelain will probably be the perfect choice for your home because of its beauty and strength of a stone and the fact that if costs less than marble and it’s easier to maintain it.
Glazed porcelain tiles are perfect for high-traffic areas of your home and they are available in a million finishes, sizes, hues, and textures so your home can look perfect.
Price range: $3.59 /sq ft – $837.45 /sq ft .
