Do you know what it’s like to be covered in dirt, worn into the ground, and scrubbed over until your nerves are just a messy tangle of split-ends? Do you how it feels to be walked all over by a feckless majority?! Then you know how those warped linoleum floors and threadbare carpets in your house have been feeling for the past 10 years. I can actually hear them crying for help out now. Yes, my dear, it’s time for you to get off your butt and do something kind for those poor excuses for flooring. And I don’t mean cleaning them. Again.

You need new floors and you need them now. Man cannot live on linoleum alone, no matter how spill resistant and easy to clean it may be. It’s just boring. As the great girl band Le Tigre once sang, “I’m so bored, I could be entertained even by a linoleum floor.” Amen, ladies. We live in a modern age and have access to sturdy carpets, beautiful laminate flooring, and sparkling hardwoods - all spill and moisture resistant. No longer must those of us with pets or children be chained to the ugliest plastic floors imaginable. Once you’ve decided that it’s time to re-do your floors, the array of choices before you is deliciously endless and totally within your reach, if you’ve completed a few preliminary research points.

Before even thinking (I mean it - get that thought out of your head right now) about what kind of flooring you want, you need to make a fair and honest assessment of what kind of flooring you need. Consider first what kind of lifestyle you live and what level of foot traffic the room in question experiences. Are you constantly trekking in and out of the house through this room? If this is the case you should go with tiled or parquet flooring, accented with a dark colored rug for warmth. Is there a higher chance of spills and stains happening in your room, as with a kitchen or a dining room? Laminate or vinyl are your best options as they are both a snap to clean and slip resistant for the harried cook. Ceramic tile is also a popular choice for kitchens, if you can deal with the popsicle toes in the winter. Another important issue to ponder before you head out to your local flooring store is the architectural style of the room you’ll be re-doing. Failing to do this can result in your picking out and paying big money for a type of flooring that is totally inappropriate for the vibe of the room it will be in. Flooring should be an accent to an existing style, so ask yourself: “What will look best with what I already have in place?” Once you’ve figured out what type and style will best suit your needs, you’re finally ready to shop for flooring!

So now what do you, the intrepid weekend warrior, need to know to get the biggest bang for your buck?

First of all you need to be armed with all the information the sales lackeys won’t tell you when they’re trying to sell you on a huge roll of the ugliest vinyl flooring this side of the 20th century. To make sure you’re getting a fair price, know beforehand the standard scale of pricing for floors. Luckily I, Mrs. X, have compiled a list of general price guidelines to save you to trouble of getting typing calluses on your pretty hands by Googling them yourself.

By far the most expensive type of flooring is hardwood ($6 - $15 per square foot), mostly due to the fact that it’s difficult to install properly. However, if done well, hardwood floors can last for 100 years without losing their value, though they are susceptible to scratching and gouging (you might have to give up those 6 inch heels before tottering across that particular surface).

The cost of ceramic tiles will vary based on the size, quality, and shape of the tiles. On average you might pay anywhere from $.79 to $15 per tile. If you’re okay with the cost, tiles are a great way to give texture to a floor and bring in a soft wash of color to a dark room. However, watch out: tile can be difficult to clean (and some can even stain!).

Laminate and vinyl floors are the best choice for the woman with no inclination towards housekeeping. A wide array of available designs and colors have made them a popular choice for builders and interior designers. They require no more than a mop or a broom to keep them clean and are sturdy enough to last for 10 years or more before being replaced. Laminate or vinyl are also economical choices, with laminate flooring sold at and vinyl going for a slim $1 per square foot.

Of course, there’s always carpet, which can be either very expensive ($15) or very cheap ($1 per square foot) depending on the quality. Yet wasn’t half this article concerned with the level of difficulty involved in cleaning these different types of floorings? Of them all, carpet is the most aggravating for the clean freak unless you can afford to shell out for both stain and moisture resistant coatings.

There: now you know everything you need to make a thoughtful, informed decision about your new flooring. Head out to the store and do a bit of window shopping to get your bearings. Take samples home and try them out with the furniture in the room. Sleep on your decision, think about it again during breakfast, and then wait at least a week. Remember: re-doing floors is like giving your house a facelift. Like a facelift, re-doing your floors is prohibitively expensive and making the wrong decision means living with the consequences for a good long while. SO don’t settle for just anything. To take some of the sting out of the purchasing process, check out Wholesale Carpets and Flooring for a wide selection of deals on several different kinds of flooring. The site also has retail stores in most states. If you’re stuck on top of a mountain and can’t come down, Flooring Deals Direct has a large inventory of big name flooring brands at low prices.

Happy flooring and good luck!

***Picture Thanks to Plan 59***

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 10:32 pm and is filed under This Place is a Dump. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.