Photo: Living idea
Tips for choosing the right material
If the old flooring has served its day, it would be a chance to try a new one. But what material should he be? What do I have to consider?
Carpet or parquet, cork or tile?
The decision for one or the other flooring depends not least on whether you would rather have a soft, elastic or a hard, smooth surface. But it is also important to what kind of room it is, whether allergic persons, small children or pets belong to the family, how sensitive you are and what cleaning habits you have. Everything is possible, because there are coverings in great variety, but also in different qualities. That's good, but it does not necessarily make the selection any easier.
Flooring: restrictions
There are basically only a few restrictions: Anyone who covers underfloor heating with a deep-pile carpet or wooden floorboards must accept that it does not warm up so quickly. And with planks, the heat can lead to larger joints due to shrinkage. In some cases, the floor covering may only have a limited height, otherwise steps to adjacent rooms or doors must be shortened. There are plastic floors, cork, linoleum or thin laminates advantage.
In the hallway and kitchen tiles, plastic floors and laminates have proven themselves. Dirt, whether from shoes or dog paws, and spilled food you can easily wipe away wet. Short-pile carpets and cork are popular in children's rooms, as the offspring discovers the world from the ground, and it feels more comfortable on a soft, warm surface. The classic in the living room are carpet and wood, but increasingly also laminate flooring. Carpets are cuddly and noisier, the higher the pile. Because they bind dust better than smooth coverings, they can also be suitable for allergy sufferers, because the dust concentration in the air is only lower on smooth soils, if actually constantly sucked and wiped damp.
If you like moving furniture, you should make sure that the flooring is lightfast, because otherwise the colors will fade. And he should know that the tone of parquet and other wooden floors changes: light woods darken after, dark light up. Oiled or painted? The trend in wood and cork is towards oiled and waxed surfaces, although they are more care-intensive. You can easily repair scratches for that.
