Everyone wants their apartment to be cozy, comfortable and beautiful. In solving this problem, the choice of flooring plays an important role. And since the floors in the apartment are under serious stress, the selected material should not only be attractive, but also meet the requirements of safety, durability and ease of maintenance. Consider the most popular flooring options and find out which one is best suited for laying in an apartment.
Variety of floor coverings
Today's market for flooring materials is replete with variety. Parquet, laminate, linoleum ... Which one is better is a difficult question.
All coverages can be divided into three conditional groups:
- Wooden - parquet and parquet board, solid wood, cork, laminate.
- Elastic - linoleum, carpet.
- Ceramic or stone - ceramic tiles, porcelain stoneware, self-leveling floors.
wooden group
A place of honor among the materials for finishing the floor is occupied by floor coverings, in the manufacture of which wood is used.
Natural parquet
Parquet is a classic flooring material. It has not gone out of fashion for many years and is an indicator of the well-being and excellent taste of the owners of the apartment. Today's parquet looks like a finished shield of a fairly large size, made of precious wood with a pattern already on it. There is also piece parquet. From it you can lay out unique compositions. It is most often made from durable wood species:
- from oak;
- beech;
- maple;
- ash.
Whatever type of parquet is chosen, with proper care it will last at least 50 years.
Parquet is environmentally friendly and completely safe, but it obliges to prepare a high-quality subfloor, refers to expensive materials and requires maintaining a certain temperature and humidity in the room.
parquet board
For the manufacture of parquet boards, natural wood is also used, but each lamella is not a solid piece of wood, but a firmly glued three-layer structure. Such a coating will cost less than parquet, it is easier to install and maintain. Parquet boards are presented in different shades, they can be combined and composed. This type of floor will last about 15-20 years.
Solid wood flooring
Floors made of ordinary wooden boards laid on logs do not lose their popularity. Despite their apparent simplicity, they have many advantages:
- 100% environmental friendliness;
- accessibility, practicality;
- the ability to create an interior room in a certain style;
- this floor is pleasant to the feet and looks great.
With proper care, this coating will delight the owners for about 30 years.
Cork
Cork coverage is close to ideal:
- It is natural, warm, strong enough, pleasant for the feet and good for health.
- Cork floors come in a variety of shades, which allows you to create interesting compositions.
- This material does not accumulate static electricity at all.
The cork can be coated with special oils and varnishes, or it can be used without coating. The service life of cork floors is from 5 to 20 years.
Important! Keep in mind that with a strong mechanical impact, traces may remain on the cork floor.
Laminate floors
Laminate is gaining more and more popularity due to its outstanding characteristics:
- It is affordable, practical and quite reliable.
- Laminate perfectly conveys the color and texture of natural wood, stone, tiles.
- Laminate boards are equipped with a locking system.
- Even a novice in the repair business will cope with laying such a floor.
Laminate has several strength classes.The higher the class, the stronger and more expensive the material.
Elastic coatings
These include two materials: linoleum and carpet.
Linoleum
It is the absolute leader among floor coverings:
- affordable;
- easy to install and maintain;
- absolutely not afraid of moisture;
- looks beautiful.
Linoleum can have a wide variety of shades and patterns, sold in sheets rolled up or in the form of tiles. Such a coating is attached to the base floor with special adhesives. After 5-10 years, it will have to be replaced.
carpet
It can be called a relative of the carpet, which has its own characteristics:
- The composition of the carpet can be both artificial and natural fibers.
- Sold in rolls or as carpet tiles.
- It is very easy to install and attaches with glue.
- Diverse in texture and color, safety.
The disadvantages of such a floor covering are a relatively short service life, lack of moisture resistance and difficulty in cleaning and cleaning.
The hardest
This type of flooring has excellent performance characteristics.
ceramic coating
Ceramic tiles and porcelain stoneware have a lot of advantages:
- floors covered with this material are not afraid of moisture;
- have a very attractive appearance;
- strong and durable;
- easily attached to special adhesive mixtures.
But they also have disadvantages:
- The coating is hard, traumatic and cold.
- It is better to mount heating systems under it, otherwise it will be uncomfortable to walk on the floor without shoes.
- Before laying, special preparation of the base is required.
self-leveling floor
Modern self-leveling floors are used not only as a rough screed. They can be an excellent finish and contain highly artistic three-dimensional drawings and various decorations under the polymer layer. Self-leveling polymer floors are:
- epoxy;
- polyurethane.
Both materials are environmentally friendly and durable, they are not at all afraid of water and other liquids, they do not require any special cleaning.
The disadvantage of this type of flooring is the special demands on the surface on which it is laid. The base under them should be perfectly flat, dry and clean.
Important points when choosing a coating
Each person decides how to make the floor in the apartment. But when choosing a material, one should not miss a few fundamental points.
The main criterion for choosing a coating is the room in which it will fit. The whole apartment can conditionally be divided into zones:
- an area for receiving guests and relaxing (these are bedrooms, a living room, a children's room);
- "wet" area (kitchen, bathroom);
- passage area (entrance hall, corridor).
For each of these zones, it is necessary to choose your own material based on their functional features and the loads that the floor carries.
- The choice of gender is influenced by the lifestyle of the family and its composition. What is suitable for a single married couple is not always suitable for a family with children. When there are children in the house, the floor should be safe, hygienic and easy to clean. The coverage must meet the same requirements if there are animals in the apartment.
- Financial security also plays a role. For example, floors made of natural materials are quite expensive. Families with limited incomes will most likely not be able to afford them.
- An apartment located on the ground floor will limit the choice of flooring due to its high humidity and proximity to the basement.
- In some apartments, it is impossible to make the floor heavier due to the formation of an additional load on the interfloor ceilings. Therefore, floors that require a concrete screed device will have to be abandoned.
What is suitable for the floor in the hallway
In any apartment, the hallway is the area of \u200b\u200bthe greatest load on the floor. Dust, street dirt, water, bicycle wheels and sledge runners require particularly durable and hardy floor coverings. At the same time, the entrance hall should be beautiful and not stand out from the general interior of the entire apartment. What is better to make a floor in it?
Of the materials listed above, porcelain stoneware and ceramic tiles will be ideal for the hallway. They are practically unlimited in service life, are easy to clean, tolerate moisture, dirt and are resistant to mechanical stress.
Glossy tiles will not fit in the hallway. When snow gets in, it becomes very slippery, which can cause injury.
Linoleum is also a good option for the hallway, the main thing is not to dwell on its cheap varieties. It is better to choose a material with a natural composition, commercial or semi-commercial: such coatings can withstand almost anything.
If the choice fell on a laminate, you need to pay attention to its strength class. For the hallway, coverage from class 32 is suitable.
How to make the floor in the bedroom
What floor should be in the bedroom? This question is faced by everyone who makes repairs in the apartment. The bedroom is a relaxation room, here most often they go barefoot. Therefore, the floor should be warm, pleasant to the feet and beautiful.
- From natural coatings, solid wood, parquet and cork will perfectly cope with these tasks.
- From the arsenal of synthetic materials, carpet is perfect. It is pleasant to the touch, walking on it is soft and comfortable. In addition, it has good sound insulation, which cannot be achieved from other artificial materials.
- Laminate is also often used for flooring in the bedroom. It is durable, beautiful, but it is not very pleasant to walk on it with bare feet, so it is better to put small rugs on the floor near the bed.
Whatever material for the floor is eventually chosen, let it please the owners with its appearance for many years.
