• Carpet adds warmth and is soft under feet and easier on children’s knees.
• Carpet is much quieter than hard surfaces floors.
• Carpet comes in a wide variety of colors, tones and hues.
• Carpet is easy to decorate with and offers many styles and colors allowing it to be the focus of the room or the perfect foundation for your furniture and accessories.
• Carpet can hide many sub-floor irregularities that would not be permitted with hard surfaces floors.
• Carpet can go over a variety of substrates and on all grade levels, even concrete slabs in basements.
• Carpet is economical and the installation costs are generally less than some of the hard surface products.

Carpet

As you might expect, carpeting comes in a variety of types. The most common types are cut-pile (smooth), frieze (textured), level loop (loops are same height), and multi-level loop (uneven loop heights for patterned look). Berber carpet, which is made of large, loop-type woolen strands, has also become popular over the years. Typically, the durability of a carpet is in proportion to its density, or "face-weight." The denser the carpet, the more durable it will be. If cost is an issue, choose a carpet with a lesser face-weight for a lower-traffic area, such as the bedroom. You'll also want to find out what the fibers are made of as well as the level of built-in stain resistance.

Wood Flooring

You may want to consider wood flooring. It is becoming increasingly popular in kitchens, hallways, living rooms, and dining rooms. You can choose between the real hardwoods, such as oak, ash and natural maple; and laminated flooring such as Pergo. Hardwood is beautiful, durable, can be made fully waterproof with appropriate coatings, and can be refinished if necessary. The downside of hardwood is that it can be scratched and is very expensive. Laminates are somewhat more reasonable in price and offer great stain and scratch resistance, but generally won't tolerate refinishing. If you decide to go with real hardwood floors, hire a professional to do the work. They will either do a "nail-down" or "glue-down" installation, depending on what kind of underlying floor they're working with. Laminated flooring is installed on a thin piece of foam without nails or glue, which makes installation fairly easy but can create a noisy floor.

Vinyl Flooring

If you have a moisture problem, leaving the old vinyl flooring down and laying the new vinyl over the top will act as a barrier and will prevent the new floor covering from discolouring. In most cases a vinyl floor can be repaired with excellent results. It is important that the seams are sealed with the correct sealer after the repair is made. Whenever you buy new flooring material, be sure to keep some scraps on hand for this purpose.

Ceramic Tile Flooring

If you want to a room to feature ceramic tile flooring, you'll choose from two types: unglazed tiles (such as quarry tiles) that get their color either from the clay or by pigments added to the clay, or glazed tiles that get their color from the glaze itself. Both kinds of tiles come in an amazing array of colors, sizes and patterns. As a general rule, glazed tiles should be used in areas where there's a probability of the floor getting wet, such as a bathroom or kitchen. In other areas, selection is largely a matter of personal preference. Most homeowners opt to have tile professionally set, but if you are handy you can do it yourself.