Floor is one of the most significant parts of your home! It is the base or platform of your dwelling – one of the first things that everyone notices upon entering a place. The way you design it, the type of flooring you choose, the colour you choose for the same and even the type of cleaning effort you put in impacts your home decor largely. That is why they say choose your floor wisely to ensure your preferred interior design gets a smart backdrop. If your floor is patchy, unkempt and faded, no matter how much glossy your painted walls are, how vividly exciting your furniture is and however lavish your curtains and upholstery is, the home shall continue to look dull and unpleasant.
There are numerous options available in stores for your flooring preferences. There are marbles that shine like mirror, stones with pattern and texture, there are artistically made tiles, and there are laminates and hardwoods too. The tough competition here is amongst the most favourite of masses, the most commonly preferred floorings — hardwood and laminates.
Important Differences between Laminate and Hardwood Floorings that Can Help You Choose Your Pick:
Though both laminates and hardwood floor may look similar, but there are some prominent differences between the two. So, if you are confused as to which one you should install in your house, read the below pointers and take your decision accordingly.
- Cost Factor — Laminate floorings are basically laminated cover on synthetic layered flooring made at a high temperature — and hence doesn’t cost you much. Apart from the original cost, these laminates are pretty easy to install, and thus do not cost much on labour factor either. While hardwood floors are made up of natural wood. The budget that you can extend to get these depends upon your choice of wood. There are some luxurious wood flooring options like maple wood flooring which can cost you a fortune, and some relatively less expensive ones too. But if compared to the laminates, both material cost and installation rates are higher.
- Durability Basis — Laminate flooring may be easy to install, but these are worn out pretty easily too. Also, their colour seems to fade much faster if the area is prone to more traffic. You can’t expect a life span longer than a few years from laminate floorings, after which you have to scrap and replace them. While hardwood floors are known across the world because of their longevity. These are extremely durable and can last for generations if maintained properly.
- Repair Factor — Hardwood floor hardly get affected even by tough traffic and wear and tear issues. And even if they get some dents and scratches, they can be restored to looking like new by just a session of floor sanding and polishing by Doncaster Floorings, who are a champ in renewing your hardwood floors, making it shiny and smooth and scratch-free just like a newly installed floor. While if your laminates get damaged in a certain area, the whole section needs to be changed and isn’t at all repairable. Dull or dirty or scratched laminate flooring ultimately means expenditure on a new one.
- Traffic and Moisture Resistant — Laminate floorings can bear traffic but will start dilapidating with constant exposure to the same. You can see the signs of it if the flooring starts coming off from a certain area or tears down or starts appearing faded and dull. The same can happen with moisture. Though it can resist moisture longer than hardwoods, after some time even this gives up in cases of extreme wetness. Whereas, a hardwood floor can bear a good amount of traffic on it without getting destroyed apart from a few scratches (nothing that a good floor sanding session cannot cure!). But it cannot at all bear moisture and wetness. Your wooden flooring will get destroyed within a very short span of time if it is exposed to even a small amount of moisture.
- Most Suitable Areas — If you are looking for impressive flooring on your living room, bedroom or lobby that doesn’t have any exposure to water, hardwood is the best choice. It not only adds charm to your home but also increases its resale value. Never ever put the same in your washrooms, kitchens, decks, etc. — where it can get destroyed easily. Even a laminate floor looks cool in your bedroom, living room, lobby, kitchen space excluding the washroom of course. It can add beauty to your home for the time being but does not contribute to increasing its resale value.
