Flooring plays an important role in your home. Its role is partly functional and partly decorative. Therefore, it is natural to feel nervous when you opt for floor renovation, as it can be quite challenging. People tend to make common but avoidable mistakes in their enthusiasm and ignorance. Let us have a look at them so that you can be sure to avoid them.
Buying cheap flooring materials
Any home renovation project is bound to be expensive, and you can cut corners in certain areas. However, such an option does not exist for floor renovation. When you change your flooring, you want the new one to be durable. If you opt for cheap flooring materials, then it simply will not survive for more than a few years, and you will have to renovate your floor again. This will increase the project expenses.
Never carry out DIY flooring
Unless you are a professional floor installer, never try to install the floor using DIY methods. The floor forms a crucial part of your house. Any errors and mistakes made during its installation, can lead to disastrous circumstances later on. Some issues that can crop up due to improper floor installation are:
- Moisture issues o Sub-floor preparation issues
- Materials laid using poor stretching techniques and not sealing the sides o Not considering the expansion factor o Poor adhesive coverage o Not allowing hardwood to acclimate etc.
Using professionally qualified floor installers, helps mitigate all of these problems and many more, from occurring.
Setting unrealistic timelines
Laying the floor requires precision and backbreaking labour. Several unexpected issues might also crop up and delay the completion of the work. Other reasons like availability of materials, labour problems, and even illness, might also push the finishing date further. So, you have to be patient with the renovation and set aside ample time to complete the project.
Choice of materials
With the various flooring material choices available now, it will be difficult for you to choose. You will be bombarded with beautiful choices in many varied colours, designs, patterns and brands. But you need to select the flooring material based on: o Its placement or which room the flooring renovation is taking place o Your budget.
Different rooms require different types of materials. For example, kitchen flooring has to be safe, low maintenance and durable, whereas for the bathroom, you have to ensure the floor is waterproof and moisture resistant. The basement floor can be quite challenging, and it is best to get a waterproof underlayment before installing the floor.
As you can see, these separate requirements of the different rooms need to be kept in mind before buying the flooring materials. More often than not, beauty becomes the deciding criteria, resulting in loss of money, time and valuable hard work.
Budget setting
You also have to be very realistic when setting the budget for floor renovation. Several things can increase the budget unexpectedly, such as contractor costs, labour problems, emergency remodelling etc. You have to factor in these things when setting the budget. Always keep a 25% buffer to take into account any emergencies that might crop up.
Avoiding the above-mentioned mistakes will make the challenge of floor renovation easy to overcome. It will also ensure superlative work and the renovated floor could almost last a lifetime.
