Before you start comparing samples or fall in love with a particular style, it’s a good idea to take a second to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Though it might be tempting to make your decision based completely on looks, you need to understand that the best flooring won’t just be visually appealing. It also needs to complement your lifestyle and be able to withstand the daily wear and tear that everyone in your home will put on it.
If your home has pets, children, or frequent guests, you’ll likely want to choose something that’s scratch-resistant and water-resistant so that it can stand up to extra foot traffic and the occasional dropped plate, spill, or accident.
Luxury vinyl, laminate, and certain hardwood flooring finishes usually perform the best in homes like these, but it’s also important to consider how you use each room in your home. Though LVP, laminate, and hardwood work well in busier living spaces, carpet offers softness and sound absorption that can be incredibly valuable in bedrooms and the hallways between them.
Looks are important, but when you think about how to choose the right flooring, you should always start with how you actually live in your home on a daily basis.
Flooring is an investment, and the lowest upfront cost is not always the best long-term value. Though luxury vinyl offers strong durability with minimal maintenance, hardwood can last decades, be refinished multiple times, and add much more long-term value to your home. Along the same line, carpet often has a lower upfront cost, but doesn’t last nearly as long as other options in high-traffic areas.
We understand that finding the right balance between material cost, flooring installation, and long-term maintenance can be tough, but we’re always here to help you make the right decision for you. Plus, our special financing options also make it much easier to select a product that truly fits your goals without cutting corners.
It’s also essential to consider the different functions that each room in your home serves and the physical demands that come along with it. If you’re thinking about installing new flooring in a bathroom, mudroom, or basement, you’ll probably want to choose something that’s moisture-resistant or completely waterproof flooring. However, in formal dining areas, you might want to prioritize elegance above all else.
When you focus on the purpose of a room, the process of narrowing down your options becomes a lot more manageable.
Different materials shine in different spaces. Understanding their strengths makes it easier to move forward confidently, knowing that you’ve made the right decision.
Hardwood is easily one of the most sought-after flooring options for its natural beauty, classic look, and long-term value. The right hardwood can add warmth and character to any room and can increase your home’s resale appeal. You can also refinish solid hardwood multiple times, which means you keep your floors looking fresh for decades to come.
Engineered hardwood is another great option that offers similar visual appeal along with additional stability in areas with mild moisture fluctuations. But regardless of which one you think is the best option for you, both options tend to work best in dining rooms, living rooms, bedrooms, and hallways.
Luxury vinyl has gradually become one of the most popular flooring options for good reason. Not only does it offer realistic wood and stone visuals. It also provides impressive durability and water-resistance, all at a much more affordable price than many other, more traditional flooring materials. This makes it ideal for kitchens, bathrooms, basements, and busy households in general.
Luxury vinyl is also much softer underfoot than tile and much easier to maintain than solid hardwood. All of this, along with the almost unimaginable variety of different colors, grain patterns, and finishes, makes luxury vinyl an ideal choice for anyone looking for durability without sacrificing style.
Laminate flooring provides an even more budget-friendly option with strong scratch resistance, making it another excellent fit for high-traffic spaces and homes with children and pets. Modern laminate flooring styles also offer much more realistic textures and attractive finishes than the laminate flooring of the past.
Laminate works well in living areas and bedrooms, though it is best to avoid installing laminate in parts of the home with higher levels of moisture exposure. Still, if you’re looking for something that offers a good balance between style and affordability, and don’t need the extra moisture protection, laminate could be the perfect choice for you.
Carpet isn’t necessarily the most classic or stylish flooring option, but it is undoubtedly the best flooring option when it comes to adding comfort, warmth, and sound absorption to a living space. This makes it an ideal flooring option that can make any bedroom, family room, or finished basement feel a lot more cozy and comfortable.
Today’s carpet options also often feature stain-resistant fibers and durable constructions that make modern carpeting a lot more durable and long-lasting than the carpeting of the past. So, if comfort is high on your list of priorities, you need to give carpet a serious consideration.
Tile has always been a fantastic choice for bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms, as it handles moisture like a pro while also offering a wide range of design possibilities. With tile, it’s easy to keep things classic and uniform, but that’s not nearly where the design possibilities end. You can also mix and match different tiles to create bold patterns that truly set your home apart from the rest.
Tile is firm underfoot and can often feel quite cold to walk on, but you could choose to pair it with efficient radiant heating systems for added comfort and potentially a bit of long-term cost savings on your winter energy bills.
Picking the right flooring material is crucial, but figuring out how to choose the right floor color often feels just as difficult. After all, the look of your flooring is something that will affect the look of your entire home for as long as you keep it.
As any good photographer knows, lighting changes everything. Natural light from south-facing windows can warm up cooler tones, but that same natural light entering a north-facing room often brings out the opposite. And that’s not even to mention how your home’s artificial lighting can shift how a floor looks throughout the day.
When thinking about how to choose the right color flooring, we recommend viewing samples in your actual space, so that you can get a sense of how both the natural and artificial light in your home changes the way each sample looks throughout the day.
Light flooring can make smaller rooms feel more open and airy, and also tends to show less dust. However, lighter flooring also tends to be much worse at hiding more permanent damage like scuffs and scratches. Dark flooring is good at creating contrast and can feel rich and dramatic, but it also makes the accumulation of pet hair and dust a lot more obvious.
If you’re unsure how to choose the right color flooring for your home, you should consider how your furniture and cabinetry will look with it. Though strong contrast can be striking in the right space, matching color palettes often makes a home feel a bit more cohesive.
Modern interiors usually feature cooler tones like gray or greige. More traditional homes often favor warmer browns and honey shades, and rustic, farmhouse-inspired homes generally go for lighter woods and subtler grain patterns.
At the end of the day, it’s all about matching the style you want to achieve, and we’ll happily guide them through all the different undertones and explain how they might affect the look and feel of your home. But if you want some good general advice now, all you need to know is that warm floors tend to pair best with warm cabinets and paint colors, and cool floors work better with cooler finishes.
Offering an almost endless variety of colors, patterns, and finishes, vinyl flooring deserves a color conversation all to itself.
Vinyl planks come in warm, cool, and neutral shades. Beige and honey tones create warmth. Gray tones bring a contemporary edge. Greige blends warmth and coolness for a balanced look.
If you want to install vinyl flooring but are still trying to figure out how to choose the right color, the best place to start is by examining the other fixed features in your home. Countertops, backsplashes, and cabinets aren’t something that you can replace easily, so you should try to choose a vinyl color that complements them.
In open-concept homes, continuity can create a smooth visual flow, and using the same vinyl plank across multiple rooms can make the space feel much larger than it actually is. However, in some cases, subtle variation can help define different parts of your home without creating overly harsh transitions.
When deciding how to choose the right color vinyl flooring, you should think about the overall mood and feel you want to create. Matching tones can make a home feel a lot more cohesive, but a gentle contrast can add a ton of extra depth and character.
Using one primary flooring type throughout the main living areas creates visual unity and also eliminates the need for transitions that can be a lot more difficult to plan and pull off well. That being said, rooms like bedrooms and bathrooms often have different needs that often require different types of flooring.
The main thing to remember here is that you don’t need to have the same flooring throughout every room of your home. But you also need to consider how well those flooring changes will flow together.
Creating clean flooring transitions is one of the most difficult parts of any whole-home flooring project, but they aren’t impossible. If you’re struggling, our team is always here to help you plan your transitions with intention and explain how different plank widths, tones, and trim pieces help different materials blend together.
Are you ready to start your next flooring installation project? Give us a call at (610) 385-3833, or contact us on our website.
Our friendly team of local flooring experts is always here to answer your questions and will happily tell you more about how we can help transform your home with the brand-new flooring you’ve always wanted.
We’ll even walk you through all of the best flooring options and offer you plenty of free samples so that you can get a hands-on look at all your favorites before you have to make your final decision.
Don’t settle for your old, outdated flooring any longer. Contact My Dad’s Flooring America and take the first step toward getting your new dream floors today.