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Top 15 Flooring Materials: Costs, Pros & Cons

With so many flooring options to cater to your personal style and preferences, you will have no problem choosing a floor type that is durable, affordable, and attractive. Investing in any of the choices below will increase the value of your home and your level of enjoyment, guaranteed! 😉

Let’s first examine the options and the decisions you should consider when choosing the type of material for your flooring. Flooring materials come in many different styles, colors, durability and costs.

Knowing what your budget is will pave the way for you to decide on what you can afford. Don’t worry if you have a low budget, you are in luck. Today’s manufacturers have come up with some creative and durable products for consumers.

If you are remodeling or building a home from scratch, the choices are endless. There is an enormous assortment of colors and textures for wood grains, tiles, glass, linoleum, concrete and more. Whether the project is a DIY or done by a licensed contractor, the project will be fun and creative.

Consider Laminate and Pergo for Style and Durability

If you are looking for a very affordable option, consider the unique qualities that laminate flooring has to offer.

via Pergo

Besides being a low-cost option to the higher-priced genuine hardwood, certain types of laminate can make your home quieter with the ability to reduce noise, be durable in the kitchen for liquid spills, and stand up to super high traffic areas in your kitchen.

Laminates can be created to look like stone tile, distressed wood and can be designed in many shapes to your liking. Laminate tiling can even duplicate the look of travertine floors. The designs are endless.

Caring for laminate is easy. Laminate is pieced together with a tung and groove system with no nails or glue. It’s an easy and fast install. This type of flooring cannot be stained and finished.

And while the cost is cheaper than hardwood, if this is going into a home that will eventually be resold, the resale value may be lowered as opposed to placing higher priced wood flooring choices.

A disadvantage to this flooring is that it cannot be repaired. The actual damaged piece will have to be replaced. It is quite durable and a cost-effective option for those on a budget.

It can also be a cost cutting option for sections of your home where don’t warrant the cost of hardwood throughout the home.

For example, you may want to use real hardwoods in the living room and choose laminates in the playroom or kitchen area. Laminate flooring is an excellent choice for rentals because replacing damaged areas is not expensive.

Costs: The cost per sq.ft. can be $2.50 to $5.00 for the materials and between $2.50 and $5.50 per sq.ft. for a warrantied installation.

Are your hardwood floors getting dull or loosing their luster? Why not give ’em a quick refresh to make your room and your home look and feel great again!? 🙂 Hardwood floors demand a fairly frequent refinishing whenever you feel that they are losing their luster. All you need to do is repair and re-sand the wood, along with some coats of refinish over the wood. Here is the step by step procedure:

Step 1. Identify what kind of wood your floors have. Mostly oak, maple and heart pine are used in wooden floors. Some wood floor types are easier to refinish than others, while engineered wood floors cannot be refinished because it is impossible to sand them. You also have to consider whether or not your old wood floors are too thin to refinish. All floors will get thinner whenever they are being refinished. Thus, after numerous refinishes, there is hardly going to be any layer left on your old wood floors to remove before applying protective coats.

Top 11 Smart Home Improvements, Plus Costs & ROI

Billions and billions and billions of dollars. That’s what Americans spent on home remodeling projects last year. More like hundreds of billions.

And this year has certainly been following the suit so far! Major home improvements and significant additions to a home are key factors in why that figure is so astronomical! But, if we’re all honest, remodeling is the type of project we all consider doing or want to do.

According to the National Association of Remodeling Industry (NARI), around 50% of homeowners surveyed in suburban and urban areas say they are willing to remodel their living space, and over two thirds of rural homeowners convey that willingness. While a third of all homeowners consider it easier to just move to a new home than tackle a remodeling project.

People remodel for many reasons, and 75% of us report feeling a major sense of accomplishment as a result of a completed project.

Better functionality and livability, or what we will refer to as the ‘enjoyment factor’, is generally cited as the top reason for why remodel at all. Other factors like knowing better materials are in place, appreciating the beauty of an upgrade and making changes to fit the owner’s feeling of their living space are considerable factors. But it is the joy factor that we wish to emphasize.