Make Your Average Home Look Like a Luxury Home with New Flooring!

Out with the old, in with the new!  You are ready to remodel or you are picking out flooring in your new construction home but before you buy, let's look at ways to step up the WOW factor and take your home up a notch!

A builder grade or low price range home will likely feature a carpeted living room and then lineolum in the kitchen and sometime dining room.  Visually, this breaks up the room and families are moving towards wood floors in the main living areas and then tiled kitchens or extending the wood flooring through the kitchen also.  The less flooring variances in one space, the larger a room will look and feel!



To take your home up a notch, consider laminate flooring.  It's very inexpensive and you can install yourself or hire a pro!  Choose a good quality laminate flooring and you'll want to verify the hardness rating. This rating is standardized a flooring expert at Lowe's or Home Depot can help you identify the rating.  The ratings you'll be looking for are as follows:

AC1 is suitable for lighter, more infrequent traffic, e.g. a bedroom.

AC2 is suitable for general residential use in living rooms and dining rooms.

AC3 can be applied to more varied locations, such as small offices and other light commercial location.

Most higher priced homes will have a very high quality engineered hardwood flooring or real hard wood flooring.  Home buyers in the luxury home markets move towards using the same wood flooring through out the entire main living area and even through to the kitchen.  Darker wood tones can give your home a rich feeling if you have good light and space.  If you have a smaller living area without a lot of natural light, you may opt for a lighter engineered wood or hardwood tone. 






Entry Ways
Tiled entry ways are the new standard in flooring.  Especially in Alaska, entry ways that have wood flooring down can get scratched by rocks in your shoes and may not hold up well over time like tile will.   However, if you have a small main living space, you may choose to carryout the laminate or hardwood all the way through the entry way too to maximize the appearance of a large room. Make sure the entry tile is in a color pallet that doesn't show dirty as quickly and grout that can easily be cleaned and doesn't look dirty the instant a wet boot touches it!




Bathroom
Tile is definitely king when it comes to bathrooms.  Make sure the size of the tile and the patter work well for the floor space.   Laminate should not be used very often in bathrooms that have tubs and showers.  Most of that flooring is not meant to have water pooled on it.  Check with a flooring expert if you want to install wood flooring in a bathroom.  There are tiles now that look like wood that can look amazing in your bathroom!



Bedrooms
Carpet is still the preferred flooring choice for homeowners in Alaska in the bedrooms.  We have moved away from the shag, longer carpet and the multi-colored strands to plush, solid tone carpets.  If you have allergies or pets that shed, you may choose to do wood floors in the bedroom but that type of flooring in Alaska is not usually seen as an upgrade.