Deciding to change the look of floors around the home can involve as much or as little money as is available for a great result. From highly polished concrete floors stained to look like marble, to the humble linoleum floor tile, designs and quality are much improved these days and the variations on all themes grows all the time.
When considering floor treatments it is worth bearing in mind the amount of traffic the floor will get, what is likely to fall onto it, and the amount of time needed for proper care and cleaning to maintain its quality.
Bamboo Floors Are a Warm, Natural Option for a Floor Treatment
Bamboo is available in manufactured panelling or in woven designs, and is an interesting alternative to laminate flooring or hardwoods. A bamboo floor is a sustainable product and is easy to clean, needing nothing more than sweeping to prevent dust and dirt being ground into the surface, and damp mopping using a little washing up liquid in solution. Panelling or woven bamboo flooring lasts a lot longer than traditional wood flooring as it is harder and more resistant to water, wear and tear. Simply Bamboo offers a wide range of options and is UK based.
Floor Tiles Give the Home Decorator Lots of Scope for Design Ideas
- ceramic
- stone
- slate
- leather
- mosaic
- porcelain
- glass blocks
- granite
- cork
- perspex
- wood
- fired earth
When buying floor tiles, manufacturers advise that buyers make sure they take the care and cleaning into consideration so as to extend the life of the flooring and to avoid disappointment in their purchase. The design possibilities are limited only by a home decorator's imagination, and creative use of colour can transform a tired room.
Sanded Floors Give New Life to Old Floorboards
It is such a pity to hide beautiful old floorboards under wall to wall carpets. No matter how old a wooden floor, sanding will bring out the hidden grain and once varnished or stained the colour of the wood will be rich and warm. It may be necessary to knock in nails that are coming loose and to fill in gaps between boards with some wood filler, and although this may take a little time this will ensure a good finish. Rather than buying equipment, home decorators tend to opt for floor sander hire, and a medium sized room can usually be done within a day. A wood floor sander is easy to use, although noisy, and the effort will pay off in the look of the finished floor.
Floor Paint for Plain or Creative Floor Designs
Floor paints can give a floor a completely new lease of life. Children's bedroom floors can be painted with fun designs, animals, or floor games like hopscotch or Snakes and Ladders. Living and family rooms can be decorated with a big design or simply painted in one or two colours with a colour complementing rug or two. Kitchens can be made vibrant with a bold colour with accents picked out in the rest of the kitchen furniture.
Polished Concrete Gives a Stunning Finish to Floors
A concrete floor covering can be polished to as high a shine as that of tumbled stones, and looks spectacular in the right setting. Polished concrete hallways look dramatic and a bathroom can look luxurious and elegant even if the floor area is small. They can be stained to look like marble or coloured through with concrete chips or a single colour, and are a hard wearing and easy to clean option.
It is possible to hire a concrete polisher with the graded diamond heads, but unless a decorator has some experience in polishing concrete a hire firm may be reluctant to hire out the heads as they are expensive and easy to break. In that case it's considered best to engage a professional to do the work.
Floors do not need to be bland and flat, and they can be as dramatic a feature as a home decorator is prepared to make them. Wall to wall carpeting, although warm and easy, may add little to the impact of a room and restricts an overall design idea. Using floor paints can lift and brighten a room, while floor tiles will add colour and texture. Sanded floors make the most of beautiful old floorboards and polished concrete can add massive impact to hallways, large rooms, or the bathroom.
One thing to bear in mind is that a particularly creative painted floor may not suit the taste of a future buyer, so if selling the property is likely then the design would be best painted over and some rugs added to the room. Otherwise, a house is a home, and decorating is the perfect opportunity for the home decorator to fill it with personality and character and colour.
Home decorators and spring cleaners may like to see the selection of articles dealing with window treatments: Five Window Treatments for the Home Decorator looks at fresh, bright decorative ideas, and How to Decorate an Arched Window provides some creative ways of dressing a round top window. How to Decorate a Small Window gives some creative ideas for maximising the impact of a smaller window and bringing it into the main design of the room.
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Bamboo flooring image reproduced under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Suzanne Bosworth - Suzanne Bosworth BA (Hons) - a professional writer published in magazines, journals and websites, specialising in arts, history and ...
