Flooring Buying Guide

How to Choose Flooring

Nothing sets the tone for a room quite like its floors. Whether you’re talking about a kitchen, living room or bedroom, the flooring you pick can change the entire look and feel of the area. Because different rooms serve different functions, you always want to pick a surface that can meet the demands of the space while maintaining its beauty and finish for years to come. When you’re trying to decide which tile, vinyl or hardwood floor to use, here’s a flooring buying guide to help!

Living Room

Considered by many to be the gold standard of flooring options, hardwood floors are a timeless choice for living rooms. Nothing beats their longevity, easy maintenance or aesthetic appeal. However, because they can be expensive and relatively easy to damage, some homeowners opt instead for engineered wood, a less-expensive alternative that’s also more resistant to shrinking and swelling.

Dining Room

As in the living room, hardwood or engineered wood floors are great options for the dining room. If you’re at all concerned about chairs scuffing the surface of this space, use a rug large enough to cover the area under your table and chairs.

Bedroom

The same hardwoods that work well in living and dining rooms can extend into bedrooms for a beautiful, rich look. Another popular alternative for sleeping spaces is carpeting, which is usually less expensive up front and provides a warm, soft surface for bare feet. Keep in mind, however, that carpeting eventually needs to be replaced, reducing some of the long-term savings. Area rugs placed atop hardwoods can provide that same soft feel for less.

Bathroom

As the room where baths and showers happen, the bathroom needs floors that can withstand drips, splashes or unexpected overflows. Porcelain tile offers that benefit, plus it’s resilient enough to seamlessly flow from the bathroom floor right into the shower. For a less expensive alternative, consider vinyl planks or tiles.

Kitchen

The kitchen is the heart of the home. It’s also the room where food gets prepped and spilled on a constant basis, so you want floors that can handle the heavy use and foot traffic. While hardwoods are a popular kitchen flooring choice, aesthetically speaking, they aren’t necessarily the most appropriate. Resilient porcelain tile or vinyl are often better choices for the heavy-duty requirements of this space.

Basement

The key to good basement flooring is a material that’s rated for installation on below-grade concrete and has the ability to hold up to persistent moisture. This makes vinyl tile a standout. It has no wood fibres, can handle damp or even wet conditions and comes in a wide variety of beautiful designs. Also, worth considering is laminate, which is typically less expensive than vinyl and far more appropriate to the challenges of a basement than wood.