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When designing the design of the floor is very important. It can only be a background, or it can draw attention to itself. It all depends on how you see your home. In connection with the vision, the design of the floor is developed. First, the tone is chosen – dark or light, then the materials are selected and only then the technical aspects are solved.
Floor color and interior
Floor design begins with the choice of color. To begin with, not so much color as tone: a light or dark floor will be in the room. There are many selection criteria. This is the style of the room, its dimensions, your desires.
In recent decades, the bright floor has been in clear favor. It is typical for most fashionable styles of decoration of apartments and houses. Light flooring should be Scandinavian design, minimalism, modern style, pop art and even popular provence and loft. They make a light, and even sometimes shiny, floor in exotic high-tech and in some no less exotic directions.
Dark floors are appropriate in the classical interior and other “historical” trends – baroque, gothic, rococo, etc., they are also inherent in eastern ethnic trends – rooms decorated in Japanese and Chinese style. If you know exactly in what way you want the setting, it’s easier for you. If you have not yet decided to the end, you will have to figure it out further.
Style is not the only thing you can focus on. Different floor colors create different sensations. Light flooring makes the interior light and airy, optically expands the boundaries of the room. That is, this is an option for small rooms.
But at the same time, the situation is “cold”. The room is light and light, but “comfort” in the classical sense will not work. But you can put dark or bright furniture, some outlandish accessories. On a light background, all this does not hurt the eyes and brings a share of comfort. After a busy day, this environment might be better.
The dark floor, on the contrary, is heavier and more mundane. It gives a feeling of comfort and stability, but in a small room, and even with low ceilings, the “box” effect appears. Comfort becomes oppressive and heavy. You can compensate for this effect with very light walls and ceilings, an abundance of light. If you want a dark floor in a small room, the furniture and doors should be light.
Large areas with high ceilings and dark floors can look good with dark furniture and doors, but with bright multi-zone lighting and very light floors and ceilings. For standard apartments, this is not an option.
And finally, let’s move on to the practical component. Everyone has long known that dirt is more visible on a light surface. This is also true for the floor and will have to be cleaned more often. But it will be possible to save on electricity and lighting fixtures: with an equal amount of light, the illumination in a room with a light floor is better. And this, by the way, is also one of the selection criteria. If the room is directed to the south, you can “shade” it with a dark floor, and vice versa – in the north, lighten it with a white or light gray floor.
Materials and floor design
Undoubtedly, the two most popular types of flooring are laminate and ceramic tiles. Laminate is used most often in residential premises, some of its types are also suitable for technical ones according to their technical characteristics. Ceramic tiles, on the contrary, are present in technical rooms – bathroom, kitchen, hallway, corridor, and are almost never used in residential areas. These two floor coverings are used in almost every renovation and the design is developed mainly on the basis of these materials.
Laminate in the interior and its types
This flooring is just an imitation of wood, tiles, parquet. But current technologies allow you to repeat the texture with high accuracy. Considering that the coating is relatively inexpensive, and there are a lot of options, the service life is about 5-8 years, its popularity becomes clear.
It is impossible to count how many colors of the “wood-like” laminate exist. There is an imitation of any breed in any color, with different board widths. So for any requests you can find the required color. But there are also non-standard colors. For example, a laminate that imitates tiles or parquet. It is not found so often and not among all manufacturers, therefore many do not know about such colors. It is produced not in the form of rectangles, but in the form of squares. Below are a few examples of these unusual colors.
But the wood-look laminate looks no less advantageous in most interiors. It is available in both light and dark colors. So it will not be difficult to find the right option.
There is a laminate in the traditional beige and brown tones, and there are ultra-fashionable bleached colors – bleached oak, ash, pine and others. They are used to create those very light and unobtrusive interiors in a modern style, minimalism and others.
Dark types of laminate look just as good. They completely recreate the wooden surface.
Tile
You can talk about ceramic tile floor design options for a long time. The number of collections tends to infinity, different sizes, shapes, colors, shades, plain dyed, with ornaments, drawings, etc. … and also their various combinations. In addition, there are unusual options that have become popular over the past few years.
The trend of the last year is the use of wood-imitating tiles on the floor. Such are the oddities – in the laminate they imitate tiles, in ceramics – wood. However, wood look tiles are used by fashion designers in the kitchen or hallway.
This is how the issue is resolved: lay tiles or laminate on the floor in the kitchen or hallway. The tile is more convenient to use, because even the best laminate does not like water, it swells and swells. If its quality is normal, after some time the coating returns to normal. But you can spill water or another liquid again … So they laid the tiles on the floor, fortunately, there was a warm floor and in this version it was comfortable in the kitchen (and in the bathroom). It was difficult to reconcile the “wooden” pattern of the laminate and the smooth, shiny tile. But now with wood-look ceramic tiles this problem is solved. The joint is made much easier.
It is interesting to look at the floor tiles with uneven edges. If you rub the seams with a composition that contrasts in color, it turns out very expressively.
Honeycomb-shaped tiles are rare. Hexagons are difficult to stack, but the effect is unexpected.
If we talk about more traditional forms – squares and rectangles, then using them you get a very interesting floor decor. The technique with large and small tiles has long been known, however, with new collections, a different look is obtained.
For some country styles, patterned tiles are suitable. Recently, the combination of brown and white has become more popular.
Laying such tiles is also not easy: the match must be up to a millimeter. All deviations are noticeable and disrupt harmony. So the master must be highly qualified.
When planning a tile floor design, remember that this rule also works in this case: either the floor will be bright and the rest of the interior is calm, or vice versa. You can make the floor and furniture the same color or match the doors to match (or a very close shade). It is not worth choosing a color regardless of the other situation, or something indigestible will turn out.
Laminate and tile joint
The most problematic places in the independent development of floor design are the combination of two different coatings. Let me give you one piece of advice. If you do not have artistic inclinations, make the joint even. It looks much better than the slurred curved lines that can sometimes be seen.
The practical purpose of the tiles near the front door is clear: it is easier to clean. But the form is chosen quite unsuccessfully. In this case, the section could be extended at least to the second door and make the joint, maybe slightly curved, if straight lines are absolutely not to your liking.
The sills, as in the photo, are trying not to be used. But if the thickness of the coatings differs, this cannot be avoided. However, shiny stripes are not used in modern design. Choose the color as close as possible to either the tile or the laminate. Ideally, it should match. Then the rounded lines do not “cut” the eyes.
If you join different floor coverings from two rooms, connect them under the door. To match, use a cork backing, which is painted in the color of the laminate or tile. It turns out a neat seam. In this case, it is important to trim the edges evenly. They can be sharpened until they match.
If you still want uneven lines, then they are drawn for a reason. They can repeat the line on the ceiling, outline the furniture, connect two specific points. In any case, the connection should be logical. You can see a good example in the photo below. Although the color and character of the surface are very different, the repetition of color in the furniture harmonizes this. The alignment line, if you look closely, goes around the furniture. Everything is natural, and therefore “does not hurt the eye.”
This is the basic rule: when choosing floor coverings, pay attention to the fact that the colors fall into the same group and are compatible, as well as that they are repeated in the decor elements of the rooms.
Parquet
Beautiful and prestigious parquet. But its price is far from being the lowest, the features of operation (regular polishing, periodic sanding, painting and humidity / temperature expansion) have led to the fact that parquet is used much less often than imitations. But the plasticity of wood allows you to create a very beautiful floor, besides, even the atmosphere in the rooms is different, and the feeling of bare feet is also different. Therefore, despite all the difficulties, he finds his admirers.
Different types of wood have different textures and different shades. There are also many tints that allow you to tint the wood to the desired shade. This is how whole pictures are assembled on the floor, which are called “artistic parquet”. Such a coating is very beautiful, but requires large volumes of premises and costs a lot of money.
You can do something less complicated. Moreover, it cannot be said that simpler parquet looks less beautiful. In this case, the texture of the tree comes to the fore, and not the ornament folded from it.
Several options for a beautiful parquet floor in the photo gallery.