Soft Vs Hard Flooring: The Pros & Cons for Updating The Floors in Your Home
When choosing new flooring for a home, homeowners are quite spoilt for choice. Whether they are updating their bathroom or kitchen, there are a variety of flooring options that can help create a stylish and modern home. But sometimes it can be difficult to decide which is best to use. Soft flooring or hard flooring? Vinyl flooring or laminate flooring?
From a distance, vinyl and laminate flooring look the same but they are actually quite different. The Spruce has a useful vinyl vs. laminate flooring comparison guide that can help homeowners decide which hard flooring option might be best to use in their home. Unsure on whether to use soft or hard flooring in your home? Here are just some of the pros and cons of using some of the most popular styles of flooring. If you prefer a resin flooring, you may research online for details like epoxy flooring uk cost, its pros and cons, and the local contractors your can hire.
Hard Flooring: Laminate
Hard flooring is popular to use in the home especially when needing a harder and more durable surface. For example, when planning an open-plan kitchen it’s important to think about many different design aspects and flooring is one of the most important. Laminate and vinyl are popular to use in kitchens around the world, while carpet is generally not used in a kitchen environment at all. However, just like with other hard floor options, laminate flooring sometimes does lack warmth. Compared to carpets, laminate is harder and can make a room feel colder.
One of the most highly durable flooring options to use in the home is laminate flooring. It’s a practical choice for busy hallways and kitchens and it can also be easily kept spotlessly clean. Cleaning is made quite simple as all laminate flooring often needs is a dry brush to sweep away dirt and dust. When well maintained, laminate flooring can last from 10 years to 25 years so it’s great to use in many homes. However, it’s also important to note that when the top layer is scratched, it often cannot be repaired.
Pros
- Laminate flooring is quite easy to keep clean
- Any spills won’t permanently stain the floor
Cons
- They can be louder to walk on without foam underlayers
- Hard flooring can add a colder feel to your home
Soft Flooring: Carpet
Carpets are one of the most popular flooring options for your home when picking out new types of flooring. They are often the go-to material to furnish floors with and they can help to keep rooms such as living rooms and bedrooms warm and insulated. There are also a wide range of carpets that are available to furnish the majority of the home in a variety of colours. For both people and pets, soft carpet flooring provides great cushioning for the feet and can also help to reduce noise around the home.
Homeowners can choose from a wide range of colours and patterns to make their rooms look fashionable and vibrant or opt for elegant, neutral tones. Regular vacuuming and an occasional Steam Cleaning for Carpets should help keep a carpet bright and fresh over its lifespan. With the help of carpet cleaning professionals you can free yourself to take care of other matters, and the pros with their experience and tools will yield a better end result.
Companies such as Pay Weekly Carpets offer a range of new flooring for the home from vinyl and laminate to high-quality carpet. They offer flooring on finance and their team will come out to talk through payment options and also measure up your home.
Pros
- Its warm & insulating to use in the home
- Carpets are also available in a wide range of colours
Cons
- It can be difficult to clean when managing spills, stains & pet hairs
- After a lot of use, carpets can wear down after a while
Hard Flooring: Vinyl
Vinyl flooring is very durable and moisture-resistant making it one of the perfect flooring choices for bathrooms and kitchens. It’s particularly hard-wearing, stain-resistant, and can last up to twenty years if it is well maintained. It’s a great tough and durable material to choose for areas of the home that experience higher traffic, such as home entrances and the kitchen.
It can be used in practically any room of the home, not just the kitchen and dining room. It can be used in the living room, bathroom, home office, and more. One of the benefits is that it’s both water resistant and waterproof so it’s the perfect hybrid flooring to use in damp locations such as the bathroom or basements over other laminate materials.
While there are many pros and cons of vinyl flooring, it is often a hassle free flooring option to add to a home as it’s quite easy to install compared to other types of flooring. However, sometimes the drawback of vinyl flooring is that, if a homeowner wants it removed, the strong adhesive can make it harder to remove but it’s not impossible. Also, with self-stick vinyl, the flooring can start to loosen a little after time if it is not installed well.
Pros
- It can be used in most rooms of the home
- This type of flooring is both water-resistant and water-proof
Cons
- If self-stick vinyl is not glued down properly, it may loosen over time
- The vinyl adhesive can can be tough to remove