FLOORING 101: PICKING THE RIGHT FLOORS

When it comes to flooring for your home the options sometime can seem endless when it comes to picking the right floors. Carpet or hardwood? Light or dark? Laminate wood or Laminate tile?
No matter what the final decision is the process is never easy. You may be considering hardwood while you spouse really wants carpet. Your complaint is that hardwood is easier to clean and your spouse may argue that carpet is much softer and insulates the floors better especially in the winter months. And thats just the beginning of the process of chosing flooring.

Lets now see what's out there.  There is laminate flooring. Laminate has come along way from it's early days.  A lot of the newer laminate floors made today are made to look and feel like real tile or real hardwood floors.  The advantage of laminate is that it is a fraction of the cost of real hardwood flooring. It is also easier to clean than hardwoods.  There is no worry about abrasive chemicals that could damage your hardwood floors.  Then there is the installation factor.  Most home owners can do this job themselves and achieve a great look without paying big bucks for a flooring company to come out and do the install. 

Another flooring product is hardwood floors.  Hardwood floors is many times the main selling point in a lot of homes on the market.  There is just something that says value about a place with hardwoods.  Hardwoods come in many different grains, stains, and shapes.  They can be cherry wood, oak, maple, burlwood, and a host of other hardwoods.  Most of these product come unfinished and require professional installation.  Some hardwood flooring products come fully stained and finished with polyurethane.  These are ready for foot traffic right out of the box.  Hardwood flooring is problably the most preferred flooring on the market.

The other option is carpeting.  A carpet can be a great way to liven up a room without the time consumtion the other two form of flooring take to install.  Carpet comes in almost every color and many different styles and pattern.  Berber carpets are one example of the styles available.  Carpets come on a large roll usually 12' across and cut to specific length depending on your measurements.  Carpet also come in carpet squares which makes installation easier and some carpet squares have the carpet pads already attatched to the bottom. Carpet knap length is a factor in carpet purchases as well.  Some carpet knaps are long like shaggy carpet and some are very short like carpet found in office buildings.

There are a great deal of manufactures for flooring such as Karastan, Gulistan, Shaw Floors, Hollytex and others.  A lot of smaller manufaturer's products can be found in discount flooring warehouses.  the offer discount hardwood floors, discount vinyl flooring, and also wholesale hardwood flooring.  When purchasing flooring products it's always a good idea to factor in children, pets, friends and family.