Flooring is an intimate building product because you come in contact with it daily, sometimes even with your bare feet. You put many demands on your flooring choices. It has to be comfortable, safe, beautiful, durable, easily cleaned, and contribute to your interior design.
The good news is that this is the golden age of flooring! You can use ancient or modern choices, natural or manmade, renewable or exotic choices.
Flooring decisions are important for both their form and function. Like other details, there must be a match between the design of the cottage and the flooring you choose. However, today there is a much wider range of choices for every style of building.
The wrong choice of flooring can spoil your daily living and cheapen the appearance of your overall design.
Some of the questions you need to answer before you begin your search are:
Is the floor going to be subject to moisture?
Is the floor going to be subject to heavy traffic or animals with nails?
Are there health needs like allergies that must be considered?
Is noise an issue in the area where this floor is to go?
Do you have environmental concerns and want a renewable product?
Are there cold temperatures that you must consider where the floor goes?
Is there a transition with the floor from another room to consider?
What level of care do you want for the floor in this area?
Many cottagers are using reclaimed wooden flooring to achieve a hard wearing floor that has the appearance of having been used by generations of families. Heating floors that will be used by bare feet is also a popular choice to consider, especially if you are using a cold material like tile. Small sections of floor can be heated with a product called warm floor, which does not heat the room, it just warms the floor. It is different than in-floor heating.
It is important to make the choices about flooring at the same time that you make the choices about how you are going to heat your new cottage as they are interrelated. You must also make the decision about your flooring before any trim work is started so the builder knows how high to leave the trim off the subfloor. Although you do not have to make the exact selection, you need to know where you may be using wood, tile, carpet, or rolled flooring.
The flooring choices you need to research and decide among are:
- Wood Natural, prefinished or waxed
- Oak, maple, pine, cherry, walnut
- Bamboo
- Slate
- Granite
- Ceramic
- Composites
- Vinyl
- Carpet