If you are remodelling your home or building a new one, you will be faced with a lot of complex decisions. Since every room is important and the floor is its base, you will need to find a solution that ticks all boxes: appeal, functionality, ease of maintenance. Luckily, there is a way to get all that without breaking the bank – installing vinyl flooring.
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What is Residential Vinyl Flooring
Vinyl flooring is a very popular option among homeowners nowadays. It is durable, water-and-stain resistant, economical and yet attractive. It comes in several forms: vinyl sheets, vinyl tiles and vinyl planks.
Vinyl Sheets
Sheet vinyl flooring is a large singe roll of flooring that you need to unroll, cut to size and glue it to your subfloor. It is usually used in high-moisture areas like kitchens, bathrooms or laundry rooms.
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Vinyl Tiles
Vinyl tiles consist of individual squares in different sizes which makes them very easy to install.
Vinyl Planks
Vinyl planks look like hardwood floors but they are more affordable, offer greater stain resistance and are much easier to maintain. Do not forget the luxury vinyl plank flooring which is known to be more durable than other vinyl floors and it can be installed over existing floors.
Benefits of Vinyl Flooring
Diverse Designs
Choosing flooring for home can be a complex task when it comes to picking the right design. Vinyl flooring offers a rich palette of colours and designs. If you want the flooring in your kitchen to look like expensive hardwood at a lower cost, vinyl is the right choice. It can look exactly like tile, hardwood or stone or any other design that you like.
It comes in a range of hues, so you can cover your kids’ room with pink vinyl flooring, yellow or blue or whatever colour they prefer. Furthermore, there are hundreds of different designs that can perfectly fit in your home’s interior design. If you are more into classic interiors, you can choose a vinyl floor that looks like hardwood. If you like to add a classy touch, use marble look vinyl flooring. Let your imagination guide you – rest assured you can find the ideal vinyl flooring design for your dream home.
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Premium Quality Options
When choosing residential vinyl flooring, make sure to choose a company with long years of experience in producing flooring for home that can guarantee the quality and sustainability of its products. Vinyl flooring is made of flexible material that feels a little bit softer under your feet than wood or tile. It’s made from a layer of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic over a layer of felt which is a tough material that stands up to moisture and heavy traffic.
Vinyl floors also reduce noise in the room it’s installed in as well as in the room below, providing great sound insulation. You don’t even have to put carpets in your rooms because vinyl flooring is not only comfortable to walk on, but it will also make the ambience in the room warmer.
Easy to Install
One of the biggest advantages of installing vinyl home flooring is that you can install it yourself. Sheet vinyl flooring is quite easy to lay. For most rooms, you will need only one piece of sheet vinyl for the whole floor. On the other hand, vinyl plank flooring comes in pieces, usually in individual squares in different sizes, so if one of the pieces gets damaged you can change it very easily.
There is one trick that can save you time and effort while installing it. Vinyl tiles come in perfect square shape and since rooms are seldom perfectly square, you need to start laying the tiles in the room from the centre towards the walls. Make sure to thoroughly sweep your floors before installing vinyl and make sure there are no protruding objects because even the smallest pieces of debris may show through it.
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Affordable Prices
Since ceramic tiles, hardwoods and wall-to-wall carpets are not very budget-friendly, most homeowners look to buy flooring materials that are less expensive yet durable and beautiful. Depending on your preferences and budget, you can choose laminate flooring, carpet tiles, bamboo flooring or residential vinyl flooring.
However, prices differ depending on quality. If you want the cheapest vinyl floor tiles, you should probably go for the self-sticking tiles in the standard 305x305mm format. Therefore, you may not get the best quality. When shopping, your safest bet is opting for better quality tiles because they will outlast the cheaper options and are not limited in colours and designs.
Ease of Maintenance
One of the biggest perks of vinyl floors is that they don’t require much maintenance – just the occasional deep clean. You can use a broom, cleaning cloths, a mop, floor duster, vacuum with a hose attachment, melamine sponge and other soft materials that will not damage the finish. While mopping, use a pH neutral floor cleaner. To remove stubborn stains, try gently rubbing the area with water and baking soda. Make sure to put a felt floor protector on your heavy furniture legs to keep the floor looking like new for as long as possible.