Do you know that the first floors were made of dirt? Imagine the mess when the floors got wet? The oldest oriental rug of record dates back to the 4th or 5th century B.C. and wood flooring was introduced in the Middle Ages. Now the choices for flooring are limitless. You can install wood flooring that’s hundreds of year’s old, you can stain and you can score concrete to look like slate or buy linoleum in almost any pattern imaginable.

Wood flooring offers a wonderful array of choices. Wood can be painted, stained, bleached, whitened or even beaten for an older look. Reclaimed or recycled wood is gaining popularity as the trend to build new houses that look old continues to grow. You can also buy Pergo, a wood imitation material much harder than wood, or linoleum which is a less expensive alternative that looks like wood. Some of the most beautiful woods, though, are those created hundreds of years ago with hand cut patterns inlaid in a beautiful design.

Specialty concrete flooring has been exploding over the past few years and has started making its way onto driveways and sidewalks to create drama and richness. By staining and molding concrete to look like slate, flagstone, or another beautiful stone, concrete becomes a work of art both inside and out. Concrete can also be painted with a wonderful pattern or artistic design and sealed to protect the design.

Linoleum has started to create more excitement lately because linoleum can be printed with anything that can be photographed and can add a textured feel to create more of a real effect. For example, you can install a linoleum floor now that looks like pebbles and has a pebbled texture. The possibilities are endless.

Tile floors have taken also off with the new trend toward European style homes, and the tiles come in an array of materials such as marble, granite, travertine, porcelain and slate. These floor tiles can be fabulous and coordinate beautifully with other hard surfaces on walls and architecture of your home, but they can be cost prohibitive, depending on the material you choose.

Carpet continues to be one of the most popular choices for homes still because of its practicality, lower cost overall and comfort. Not only is wall to wall carpet a warm flooring choice, but it also provides great insulation for noise and covers floors in poor condition. Carpeting can also be appealing visually because it adds color and texture to a room’s design.

For years, the most popular carpeting choice for rooms used to be a plush or velvet pile, but recently frieze, a more tightly twisted yarn that almost appears curly has become the most common choice. Frieze is extremely durable, which makes it a great choice in high traffic areas and this texture can be purchased in a look similar to the standard plush pile.

To test the durability of a carpet, you can give it the “grin test” by folding the carpet back on itself to see how much backing shows. This test is called the grin test because the backing looks like a smile breaking through. If quite a bit of backing shows, then the carpet is considered less durable.

2nd Part of column
Fabulous floors form the foundation of any great design. So when you’re beginning to design a room, start with the floors. As with any good design, start by first looking at the function of your room, the home’s architecture, the style you prefer, your budget and the color palette you’ve chosen. By determining the function of your room, you can begin to narrow down your flooring choices. If you want a quiet cozy room, you’re going to want some type of soft flooring in the room to reduce noise, usually either wall to wall carpet or a large area rug over a hard surface. And if one of your room’s main functions is food preparation such as a kitchen, then you will want to select hard flooring that’s easy to clean up. In the kitchen, you can narrow down your choices even more by deciding if you want a cool or warm surface and a traditional or modern feel. For a warm surface with a modern feel, you might want to go with a wood floor in a lighter bleached wood or a dramatic pattern. And for a cool surface with a traditional style, you could install hard flooring such as tile, stained concrete or brick But don’t forget, cool flooring can always be warmed up with under floor heating.

As you’re deciding on flooring for each room in your house, remember that a change in flooring type denotes a transition to another area or room. That’s why area rugs are a great way to define different areas of a room, especially if the home has an open floor design. Adding an area rug to a conversational grouping is a great way to not only define the space, but also to tie all the elements of the design together. Area rugs then become the foundation for your color palette and you can pull colors out of the rug for your design.
If you already have a color palette established before adding an area rug, then you can use a solid colored rug with texture or a secondary pattern such as blocks or stripes that coordinates with your current style.

Area rugs come in a huge variety of choices from expensive classic Persians to inexpensive cottons, so if your budget allows, you can change your area rugs as the seasons change. For example, you could lay down a cotton or sisal rug in the summer to keep the room light and airy. Then you could replace it with a warmer wool rug in the winter to add warmth and coziness.

Hand knotted Persian rugs are considered the finest oriental rugs available and they are normally made of wool in a rectangle or elongated shape. The number of knots per square inch is considered an indication of a rug’s quality and durability, so the more knots the better. And an excellent quality rug can have 500-1000 knots per square inch.