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Helping you choose the ideal flooring for your home

Choosing a new floor for one room, or for multiple rooms can feel a little overwhelming. With a seemingly never ending choice of paints, wallpapers and colour schemes available where do you even start?! For the best advice ask the professionals. An experienced interior designer will take into consideration the age, and style of a property to deliver a harmonious, balanced scheme which fulfils the clients brief, and more importantly taste. If your budget won’t stretch to an interior designer you can find inspiration with websites such as Houzz, Pinterest, Instagram with endless images of real life homes recently completed by professionals.

These resources are the perfect starting point for working through ideas, and finding an aesthetic that can work for you. Rooms should be considered for the function they will be asked to perform. Along with walls, floors are the largest consideration when remodelling a room or home. When deciding on a scheme these two aspects are equally important. They should be considered together to ensure they complement one another. When choosing a paint, or wall covering check to see if they work with your preferred floor covering. Do they provide cohesion, and the look you are after? If you are laying new hard floors throughout the ground floor of your property how will these look with your new, or existing kitchen? A beautiful oak hardwood floor will look better with a painted shaker style kitchen, rather than a kitchen made from maple vaneer. As a rule hardwood flooring in a kitchen will look better with a kitchen that isn’t wood, or wood effect. It is best to stick to one species of timber, to avoid patterns, and colours competing for attention. If you are keeping your existing kitchen and want to run the same flooring throughout the ground floor this may limit your options.

To achieve the best results the golden rule is to work with your property. If your home is built in 1860, seek out materials that will be true to the age it was constructed. For example look at our York Old English boards which replicate a floor form this era. Alternatively if you want a more contemporary look some of our classic boards, will give a fresh feel to a period property, whilst also remaining true to its heritage. You may want to install under floor heating underneath your new wood floor to warm up a colder period home. All of our engineered boards are guaranteed when fitted correctly over under floor heating. For the best solution use boards that are no thicker than 15mm, and bond the floor rather than floating, as this will improve heat transference. You may want to consider our Winchester Collection which is popular for period properties.

If your home is of more recent construction you may wish to consider our Manhattan Collection where the boards are selected for their refined grain. With little very few knots, and little variation between boards they will sit perfectly with a modern sleek interior. If you prefer something with more character you may find something to your taste in our Canterbury range. These boards are hand finished to bring out the natural beauty of the timber. The hard wearing coloured oils offer protection against everyday wear and tear.

A similar approach is recommended when selecting carpets. If you are looking for cohesion use the same quality and colour throughout the property, or adjoining rooms. This will also give the feeling of space, and make smaller properties feel larger. A home with different flooring types, and styles can feel unplanned or disjointed. If your preference is for different colour schemes in several rooms you will want to consider a floor covering that will complement each area.

There are many subtle tones throughout our ranges that will provide versatility. To help narrow down the choice we recommend borrowing samples to take home and try in each room, against fabrics and paints colours. Check the colours throughout the day, and evening as they can appear quite different in natural and artificial light. If you have pets, or small children a man-made fibre such as polypropylene, or solution dyed nylon will provide peace of mind as they are inherently stain resistant. If you prefer wool we can cover these with Intec stain protection which will allow you time to attend accidents or spills.

If you find it is becoming difficult to come a decision, then keep it simple. A basic rule is to opt for darker colours on the floors than walls. Flooring is made to be walked on so a darker floor will be more forgiving to the odd mark, or small stain. As walls and floors are the canvas on which everything else sits, keeping them simple will allow more flexibility with other elements. Another tip is to avoid trying to match the colour, and shade of the floor to the wall, or vice versa. Rooms look more balanced when the shade used on the walls is different to the floors. The colour can be the same, however the shade should be different.

For personal assistance please visit our showroom where our friendly, knowledgeable team are on hand to offer help and guidance.