Will you do the work yourself? Make sure before you start, that you are quiet sure you know exactly what to do. Mistakes could be costly.Work out the correct area with the help of the scale drawings and your retailer. Don’t forget that rooms with right-angle corners are much easier to cope with than ones which slope or have lots of odd corners.
Make sure all the boards are secure. Loose boards can creak or squeak. However, don’t rush round banging nails into old floorboards indiscriminately. Find out, first, where the wiring or the water pipes are: you don’t want to end up dead and a burst pipe makes an astonishing amount of water. To remind you, make chalk marks along the line of the wires or pipes. Sometimes electricians or telephone engineers cut boards between the joints when rewiring or laying cables; make sure these are properly re secured.
Follow the manufacturers’ instructions faithfully for laying, cutting, joining and so on. Vinyl tiles with self adhesive backs are far and away pleasanter and easirer to lay that the kind with separate adhesives. Floors like wood block or mosaic must be laid professionally.
NB: Remember to check that doors clear the laid floor. If not, trim them before putting down the new floors. It is possible to get lift-off hinges for doors.
First choose a flooring for its practical qualities, then choose the colors, textures and patterns to fit within the overall decoration scheme.
Starting from scratch:
When you are planning a completely new home-or a room-without having any existing furniture or other items to consider, you may start by choosing the floor covering and then relating walls, paintwork, curtains, furniture and accessories to it. The floor is one of the biggest and probably most expensive items-and therefore the most difficult to change if you make a mistake. It is unwise, for instance, to cover a large living-room floor with multi-colored floral carpet unless you are sure that is what your family wants to live with for a number of years. If on the other hand, you plan the floor as a pleasant background, it is possible to change the color scheme and mood of a room without too much disruption and expense.
If you have no definite ideas, start by thinking of natural or earthy colors on the floors. Peaty browns, moss, oat meal or terracotta are all colors you won’t tire of easily.
Cleaning problems:
If you have a house prone to dog hairs, solid-fuel dust. town filth, endless pairs of dirty boots, you will bless yourself for choosing a smooth floor which you can easily clean. Most floors which used to be polished can now be sealed with a clear seal and need only be damp-mopped.
The cleaning advantage of having fitted carpets is that you can go through the whole house with a vacuum cleaner and not keep stopping to sweep in corners. But some carpets, like the cheaper Indian ones, have a tendency to molt. The latest carpet sweepers deal equally well with pile carpets and flat surfaces, and have a lever mechanism for raising or lowering the brushes.
(To Be Continued…)
