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Site Contents
Interior Design Basics:
- Homepage
- Interior Design Basics
- The Basics of Color
- Wall Treatments
- Fabrics
- Furniture
- Window Treatments
- Flooring Treatments
- Securing Your Home
- Green Home Basics
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- Easy Home Decorating
- DIY Handyman Guide
- Drywall Installation
- Kitchen Design
- Bathroom Design
- Home Theater Design
- Furniture Selection
- Feng Shui Better Living
- Guide to Home Security
- Big $ Fixing Up Houses
- Build New Home Save $
- Landscaping Plans
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Interior Design Flooring Treatments
Your choice of flooring treatment is huge in interior design and will set the tone for the entire room. Once again as always consider function, mood and harmony.
Function – Flooring treatments must be durable and stain resistant. Depending on the area you are using it in and the flooring choice, it may also need to handle moisture well and not be slippery (bathrooms, kitchens etc). It may need to be warm underfoot (bedrooms), it may need to provide soundproofing (if you have living spaces underneath) and/or it may need to be non allergenic for asthmatics and hay fever sufferers.
Cost is also a consideration of function. Changing an existing flooring treatment can be extraordinarily expensive. It may make more sense to cover or uncover an existing flooring treatment.
Mood – Some flooring materials, such as brick or slate, impart an informal mood. Others like marble or lacquered wood impart a more formal mood. Some like pegged planking impart a more traditional mood. Others, like vinyl are more modern. The color of a flooring treatment can also be warm or cool in mood.
Harmony – Harmonious scale is important with flooring treatments. If you have a large room, then you may consider using an area rug that floats in the middle of the room to give that room a smaller appearance. In smaller rooms, wall to wall carpeting may be more appropriate. Also, larger rooms can handle more dramatic patterns than smaller rooms. In smaller rooms you should stick with small patterns or solid colors. This applies not only to flooring treatments but also to other areas of the room.
Hard Flooring Treatments
Wood Flooring
Wood flooring can be very durable. It can however be noisy, slippery, and dusty and may require on-going waxing or buffing. As hard flooring goes, wood is less fatiguing on the legs as it can bounce. It is also a less expensive option for hard flooring treatments.
The mood of the wood floor is affected by the type of wood used, the pattern of the wood when laid down and the finish on the surface of the wood. Oak is the most commonly used wood for floors because of its wide availability.
Stone Flooring
Stone floors include natural products of the field or quarry like flagstone, slate and marble or man made aggregates of these materials like terrazzo and mosaic.
Flagstone is the most rugged and casual of these materials. It has an uneven rippling surface. It is used most often for porches, outdoor terraces and entrance halls. It cannot be glued down, it must be concreted down. It can be tough on the feet.
Slate is a smoother stone than flagstone. If you can source flat pieces you can glue it down with mastic. Slate can be very effective in entrance halls, kitchens, fireplace hearths and stairs. Slate should be sealed after installation to protect it. Keep in mind these treatments can change the color of the slate.
Marble is the most elegant, most varied and most expensive of the natural stone flooring treatments. You can find marble in just about any color. Marble is usually installed as tiles. It can be glued down with mastic but is usually set in cement. Either way the tiles are usually butted together so no grout is necessary. Once installed, marble should be sealed.
Terrazzo is flooring that goes back to Renaissance Italy. This is a man made product of marble chips and dust mixed with cement and poured onto the floor about 1 inch thick. Generally square or rectangular sections are made by separating areas on the floor with brass or aluminum rods. These serve as expansion joints and also as a pattern. After installation the surface is machine polished and provides an attractive, durable and easily maintained flooring treatment. This material is available in a wide variety of colors.
Mosaic is about the oldest form of custom designed flooring treatment still in use today. Mosaic consists of designs produced by embedding small pieces of marble, glass or ceramic in a bed of cement. A mosaic is a hand made work of art. As such it is very expensive.
Tile Flooring
Brick and ceramic tile flooring is a very common choice for wet areas or heavily trafficked areas.
Brick is rugged and casual. You can use it both outdoors and indoors. It is perfect for entrance halls as it is both durable and non slip. Brick comes in many varied colors and is usually set in a concrete bed. You can lay it with sand or earth separating the bricks in an outdoor setting to allow drainage however.
Ceramic tile comes in two categories – Unglazed or Glazed. Unglazed tile is made of clay that has been fired only once. Its color has a natural, earthy quality, and its surface is usually slightly rough. It is commonly called quarry tile. Glazed tile is unglazed tile that has been painted with a design or pattern and then fired again to glaze this painted surface to a glossy, bright, hard finish.
Resilient Flooring
Resilient flooring is made from thin tiles or thin sheets of man made products like vinyl or linoleum. It is fairly inexpensive, easy to install, stain resistant and easy to clean. For all these reasons it is commonly used in heavy use areas such as playrooms and utility rooms. It is very often used in kitchen designs.
Resilient tiles include asphalt tiles, cork or vinyl tiles. Vinyl tile is by far your best option of these three. Cork is too soft and asphalt tile indents and stains easily.
Vinyl tiles and sheets come in an almost unlimited range of colors and designs. You can even get vinyl flooring that looks like a wooden floor. When laid properly this is a very versatile and attractive flooring treatment.
Soft Flooring Treatments
Carpeting and Rugs
Carpeting and rugs are your best option for bedroom areas as they are warm under foot. They have unmatched qualities as floor coverings in terms of their softness and variety of color and design. If you have severe allergies however you may wish to avoid this flooring treatment completely.
Rugs look fantastic in large rooms with hard flooring treatments and wall to wall carpeting is the most popular flooring treatment for modern home design. Avoid the use of carpet or rugs in heavily trafficked areas as they can become extremely dirty and wear unevenly. Also be careful with rugs on slippery hard flooring as you could have a nasty fall.
Rugs on both hard flooring and on carpeted floors can be a fantastic way to incorporate your color schemes from the rest of your room treatments into your floor design and can help tie everything together.
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Interior Design Basics:
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Recommended Advanced Reading:
Easy Home Decorating . DIY Handyman Guide . Drywall Installation . Kitchen Design . Bathroom Design . Home Theater Design . Furniture Selection . Feng Shui Better Living . Guide to Home Security. Big $ Fixing Up Houses . Build New Home Save $ . Landscaping Plans
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