It’s easy to see why flooring often gets pushed to the bottom of the home-improvement list. Unlike a bold paint color or a new kitchen splash-back, it tends to fade into the background, quietly doing its job without demanding much attention. As a result, many homeowners put it off in favor of upgrades that feel more instantly rewarding.
But overlooking your flooring is a common — and costly — mistake. In reality, it has a huge influence on how your home looks, feels, and functions every day. Upgrade it thoughtfully and your space immediately feels more cohesive, comfortable, and elevated. You might not always be able to pinpoint what’s changed, but you’ll definitely feel the difference underfoot.
In this article, we’ll take a deeper dive into this topic, outlining some of the key reasons why it can be worth upgrading your home’s flooring, as well as some common mistakes to avoid to ensure you end up with flooring that provides real value to your property.
Flooring Enhances Your Home’s Visual Appeal
Looking for a way to enhance your home’s visual appeal? There’s arguably no better way than upgrading the floor. This is a high-impact home improvement that can transform the look and feel of a room, especially if your existing flooring has been in place for longer than you can remember and has long lost its aesthetic value. Indeed, the act of adding new, better flooring to your property can do more than improve the floor space; it can have an impact on the entire room, helping to feel larger, modern, and just all-around higher quality.
It Can Seriously Boost Resale Value
Home buyers pay attention to the quality of a property’s flooring even if they’re not fully conscious of it. Homes with dated flooring hold significantly less appeal than properties with flooring that makes an impact, and that translates into property value. Some research indicates that quality new flooring can increase the value of a home by as much as 3 – 10%, which is a pretty substantial increase.
Aside from simply helping to raise the price, you’ll just generally make your property more appealing to potential buyers, who will be more likely to submit an offer if they know that they won’t have to replace the flooring once the property is in their hands.
It Boosts Functionality
New floors offer a range of benefits beyond enhancing the look of a space. For example, they can help to boost energy efficiency, which in turn both makes the home more comfortable and decreases energy bills.
It Can Even Increase Well-Being
Did you know that upgrading your home’s floors can be good for your health? It’s true. If you currently have carpet that has been there for longer than you can remember, then there’s every chance that your home’s air quality isn’t as good as you would like it to be. Old carpets can accumulate dust and mold that can be damaging to people with respiratory issues.
Plus, there are also mental health benefits that come from installing brand new, quality flooring. It can help to make the space feel like yours and ensure that you genuinely love where you live. Given its prominence, poor flooring can have a subtly negative impact on how you feel about your home.
It’s an Aesthetic Investment
One of the reasons why homeowners are reluctant to upgrade their flooring is that they believe it’s a time-consuming, complicated process. In reality, modern floor replacement techniques are pretty advanced, which means that you can upgrade your flooring with much less difficulty than you might think.
In any case, the process is usually complete pretty quickly, often in a matter of days, even for family homes. Once it’s finished, you’ll be enjoying the benefits for many years to come. Modern floors last a long time, so you won’t need to think about undertaking the process again for quite a while!
Mistakes to Avoid
OK, so now we’ve outlined some of the many benefits you can expect from upgrading your floors, let’s make sure that you actually get them. Done correctly, upgrading your home’s floors can have a transformative impact, but you’ll need to avoid the common errors in order to ensure that’s the case! We’ve put together a bunch of the common errors other homeowners have made in the past so that you don’t need to.
Low Quality Flooring/Poor Installation
The fastest way to be unsatisfied with your floor upgrade project is to either buy low-quality flooring and/or hire the wrong company for installation. Either one of those issues will likely result in the opposite of what you should expect when upgrading your floors.
Working with a quality floor store & installation company is a tried-and-tested strategy for achieving exceptional results. Not only will they have the best flooring materials, but they’ll also know exactly what it takes to install them to the highest of standards.
Focusing Too Much On Appearance
It’s easy to become a little obsessed with a type of flooring that you love the look of, but keep in mind that there should be a functionality element to the flooring you choose for your home. Beautiful wood flooring has plenty of visual appeal, but it might not be appropriate for your bathroom unless you’re willing to invest in maintenance.
Going For The Cheapest Option
Flooring covers the entire house, so you can understand why homeowners are drawn to the cheaper options. However, keep in mind that while cost can be a factor, it should not dictate the entire decision-making process. When it comes to flooring, you tend to get what you pay for. You might find that you have to replace the flooring sooner than anticipated, when, if you’d just paid a little extra in the first place, you’d be enjoying your flooring for many years.
Overlooking Floor Color
It’s not just the material that impacts the functionality and appearance of the floor — the color does, too. Some colors require more maintenance than others, and different colors have a different impact on the room. Light floors can make a space look bigger and brighter, but also show marks more easily. Dark floors hide marks, but can make the room feel smaller. Balancing between what looks good and what the room needs is key.