Floors are like the shoes of your home…
Look out below!
Storytime:
I received great advice when I was younger:
“Spend money on what comes between you and the ground.”
This means buy the best possible shoes, tyres, and mattress you can afford.
However, I have recently added flooring to this list.
Let me tell you the tale of the Laminate-strip toddler-swords of my past.
Having moved into my grownup house I did not initially have the budget to redo the floors of the kitchen and living room area. This means I was unprepared for the sweet 8 months old I bought into the house who gently played with his baby toys on his playmat and gurgled at me while I was cooking, to turn into a whirlwind of dirt and noise wielding anything and everything as a weapon of mass destruction.
This included the connection strips between our laminate floors and tiles…despite the fact that they were glued down, inexpert (soaking) floor-washing, spills (by the aforementioned whirlwind) and general foot traffic soon meant that they all separated from the floor and turned into lightweight yet sturdy baby-swords.
A few months of unexpected whacks from these strips had me quickly contemplating new flooring options.
In the end we settled on non-slip large, neutral stone tiles, and I haven’t had a whack since. Affordable, sensible and most importantly, connection strip free.
However, stone or porcelain tiles are by no means the only way for you to revamp your floors and in the process of finding my solution I discovered the world of beautiful, bespoke flooring design options…
Here follows my “One day when I’m a real grown-up” flooring bucket list:
For the bedroom:
Nothing beats a luxurious thick pile carpet. This might not be the best option if you have pets and children (like me), but you can’t deny the comfort of getting out of bed and stepping onto a pillowy, lush carpet. My favourites include:
For a useful discussion on carpet styles, click here
For the bathroom:
Screed/cement flooring might be fine for some but the aspiring Greek goddess in me can’t get enough of marble- or granite inspired flooring in my bathroom. Looking into these slabs, I found some affordable(ish) and some totally aspirational options.
Here are my favourites:
Aspirational: Natural Stone Collection Bianca Carrara marble. (The name says it all, but WOW…)
For the living spaces:
In my personal opinion, the only thing that beats the luxury of marble or bespoke carpeting is real, authentic hard wood flooring. These days there are many options for reclaimed and sustainable hardwood flooring, but obviously these don’t come cheap!
Oggie Brazilian Brown hardwood flooring
Truewood smoked oak UV hardwood (slightly more affordable)
(These remind me of the floors I grew up on and nothing beats nostalgia)
As with any part of the home improvement and renovation game, many factors play a role.
I chose the unobtrusive, durable, and neutral option for my floors for many reasons, (including resale value and pet and kid-survivability), but that doesn’t mean YOU need to make the sensible choice.
