So you’ve finally decided to tear up the orange shag carpet in the basement and are wondering what to replace it with. A walk through a flooring store might not diminish any of the confusion. There are many flooring options on the market today. Gone are the days when your choices were carpet or linoleum. These days the choices are far more overwhelming. With factors such as durability, price, and environmental aspects to consider, style and colour can seem like the easy part.

Here is your guide to the most common types of flooring on the market today.

Hardwood – Seen as a luxury item, hardwood floors give a space a sense of grandeur and can raise resale value. Styles can range from formal to rustic depending on the finish and width of boards. As a natural product, wood varies in degrees of durability depending on the type of wood. All types are prone to scratches and dents and none are water resistant. Check with your flooring supplier on the durability of your particular type of wood.

Cork – Environmentally sound option. The cork is harvested from the bark of the tree without cutting the tree down. The cork bark will also regenerate in about 10 years time. Very soft and warm to walk on. Very forgiving to dishes that have been dropped in the kitchen. Cork also absorbs a lot of sound so acts as a very good option in open floor plans or in areas that need sound damper.

Bamboo – Bamboo is actually a grass, not a wood product and it can be harvested every 5 years. As a result, no forests are destroyed to make bamboo floors making it a renewable resource. Bamboo is as durable as the most durable hardwoods and costs about the same as premium wood floors.

Engineered Hardwood – Has a layer (approx 1/8”) of real hardwood on the surface of a more inexpensive softwood or laminate. Uses less wood than traditional hardwood floors making it more environmentally friendly and is slightly more resilient than hardwood at a lower cost.

Laminate – Dent and scratch resistant. Higher priced laminates can look like real hardwood while lower priced options often have the unmistakable synthetic look. A good option in high traffic areas.

Tile – Broken up in two categories – Ceramic and Porcelain. Ceramic is generally less expensive but is more vulnerable to cracks and chips. Porcelain has a very high durability rating and the colour runs all the way through the tile so if it does chip or crack it will be difficult to see. Tiles are well known for being cold on the feet, consider under-floor heating.

Carpet – Various styles and colours. Everything from plush to berber to the new shag. Creates a warm and cosy atmosphere. Great as a sound absorber. Not a good choice for anybody with allergies.

Vinyl – Good quality vinyl is scratch and dent resistant. Comes in various styles but more limited colours. Known environmental hazards during manufacturing and disposal make it a low “green” option.

Knowing what factors are important to you and your family will help to narrow down the options in flooring. Talk to your designer or flooring representative to learn more about potential options.

Whether you are building a new home, renovating the entire house, or just trying to update a single room, wall colour can be one of the most complex decisions to make. Wall colour can transform a room from the bland to the exotic and is responsible for pulling together the overall feeling of a room, be it classic, modern or country. Unfortunately, it is also the one area where the most mistakes can occur. It certainly accounts for the majority of questions that I get asked by clients and friends alike. This is what I tell them…

First things first. The most important rule when choosing wall colour is to try to choose everything else that is required in the room first. For new construction, choose flooring, cabinets, countertops, and backsplash tiles before choosing wall colour. When buying new furniture or replacing carpet in an existing room, ensure that you already have the fabric sample or carpet colour choosen, then choose a wall colour. Although this may seem a little backwards, consider this. There are over 3000 paint colours in just one colour fan from a major paint company. Then consider the number of paint companies that are out there. I did a quick test and I can think of over 20 companies in under two minutes. Do the math. That’s over 60,000 paint colours. And trust me, there are more out there. Regardless of what other finishes you will be making decisions on, you will never have more selection to choose from than when choosing your paint. Therefore, narrow down your finishes, fabrics, etc first, then, focus on a wall colour. Your previous selections will have already narrowed down the colour selections for you and at that point it is all about finding the right shade.

Although it may seem like a daunting process, be assured that the right shade is out there. For every situation. The biggest difficulty in choosing colour can be determining a colour’s undertones. An undertone is the buried colour within the overall colour. It’s the reason that some beige carpets look like they have pink in them and why others look grey. Every colour has an undertone and getting used to picking them out can take some practice. When in doubt, get a second opinion or consult a professional. In all cases, make sure that you view the potential colour in the room for which it is intended, in morning, afternoon and evening light. This is a very important process as the colour will change dramatically depending on the amount of light hitting it. Make sure that you know what it will look like in different qualities of light before applying it.

When choosing wall colours for an open floor plan it is very important that all the colours flow together. That doesn’t mean that you must end up with one colour throughout, what it means is that all of the colours must have a common tie to each other (ie they all must have a yellow undertone). Some easy and successful places to make major colour changes are the powder room, den/office, master bedroom and ensuite. The reason that these are relatively fool-proof areas to make colour changes is that they all have a different purpose from the main living area (ie the master bedroom is private space versus the public space of the living room and kitchen).

Paint is by far the most inexpensive way to change or update a room, but it is also the selection that can be the trickiest. To give yourself the best possible opportunity to pick the right colour the first time around, take some time in choosing that colour. Get a second opinion, look at it in different lights, take home a sample of the paint colour and try it right on the wall. Because we all know that, “if it doesn’t work out, it’s just paint”, but do you really want to have to re-do it?