Top reasons for a solid wood floor installation

A time-honoured choice, hardwood has remained a popular choice for many homeowners to this day in both traditional and modern homes. Requiring a professional with skill and experience to install it, this type of floor is also luxurious due to the natural wood harvested and finished to create its boards.

Although there are one or two challenges to installing a solid wood floor within homes, the many advantages of this flooring choice have sealed its enduring appeal. Below, we’ll outline some of the key reasons why property owners are still picking this longstanding solution for the rooms they live in.

Outstanding aesthetics

While many floor types like luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and laminate seek to mimic hardwood, nothing compares to the natural texture and rich grain found in real wood. Renowned for adding a sense of warmth to homes, a hardwood floor can transform indoor spaces by bringing a sense of our natural world indoors.

A vast array of different woods like oak, ash and cherry are used for wooden flooring to name but a few. These wood choices can then be stained and finished to create different appearances. The combination of the rich range of raw materials and numerous treatments allows homeowners an incredible selection of different floor styles, enhancing the chance that they’ll find a floor uniquely suited to their personal taste.

Leading interior designers are quick to extoll the numerous virtues of real wood that help them in their work. Timeless and tasteful, a real wood floor can work effectively with almost any kind of décor, furnishings, and fittings.

Increasing the value of a property

As a sought-after floor solution often viewed as a luxury, a hardwood floor can add value to a home. As a result, the investment a property makes in buying and installing a solid wood floor can serve them later when it’s time to sell. Costs involved in adding the flooring to a property can be recouped later when its price tag can be increased to reflect the choice of real timber boards.

One floor for always

If properly cared for, a hardwood floor can deliver a lifetime of use to its owner. Updating the flooring is not something you want to be doing again and again, and as a result, many property owners see the wisdom in installing an option that is built to last.

Not only is natural wood incredibly robust, but it can also be periodically refinished by a professional who will sand it down and finish it. This process effectively restores the wood’s natural beauty to its original state when it was first installed and should be performed every 7 to 10 years during the floor’s active service life.

To sum up, installing solid wood flooring can add an exceptional appearance to a home while raising its worth on the housing market. Built for a long lifespan, a hardwood floor can be enjoyed for a lifetime provided it is given the care it deserves.

Top winter benefits of installing an artificial lawn

Among the many reasons why property owners with outside areas opt for artificial grass as a covering is its superior resilience in different seasons. Among the harshest times of year for real grass lawns, winter presents unique challenges for homeowners. As a result, many people are now seeing the wisdom in installing a synthetic lawn instead. Read on as we explore just some of the advantages homeowners can appreciate when they select an artificial option instead of natural grass.

Artificial grass in winter

Even the best natural turf lawns will experience damaged grass blades and dead patches under the poor growing conditions typically occurring during wintertime. From harsh frost and limited sunlight to colder temperatures, the elements can quickly take their toll. This means that for the winter months, laws will often look drab, patchy, and unsightly.

An artificial lawn suffers no such issues and can remain looking green and vibrant even when the weather is gloomy. Made of robust materials, it can hold up exceptionally well under winter conditions. While winterising a regular lawn is hard work involving frequent maintenance, synthetic grass needs virtually none. This means less time spent out in the cold when you’d prefer to be inside.

Coping with snow and rain

It goes without saying that lawns suffer severe stress during the winter months. When the temperature plummets, compacted snow and freezing rain and sleet can cause damage or even kill grass. By the time spring rolls around, many homeowners find their lawn can look a little bleak. Evergreen artificial lawns have been designed to cope with snow, sleet, and rain. Cleverly engineered perforated grass fibres and permeable underlays allow rainwater and melted snow to seep safely through to the ground below, preserving the lawn’s condition and aesthetics.

No more dead patches

Owners of a real lawn experiencing winter kill will find that when dead patches of grass occur over the coldest season, they can take many months to naturally fill in. In some cases, it may be necessary for these attacked areas to be reseeded and entirely new turf may even need to be laid. Artificial grass is far hardier and was created by experts to withstand the harshest climates while keeping its vivid colour and lush texture.

A safer and cleaner garden over winter

Homes with children or pets will find artificial grass can make life easier over winter. When snow and sleet melt, the grass beneath can get muddy. As a result, when pets and children play outdoors, this muck can get trampled inside. In the winter months, weather conditions can make walking your dog difficult but with an artificial lawn outside, you can still allow them some outdoor time. Ready to use all year round and easy to clean, artificial grass is exceptionally suited to pet lovers.

Finally, while regular grass can become slippery and unsafe from this process, artificial grass can effectively filter out excessive moisture, making for a safer environment for children to play on.

Why is vinyl tile flooring ideal for a home office?

Since March last year, many business professionals have enjoyed the benefits of being able to work from home. From drastically reduced travel time to being able to spend more time with family while working in an environment ideally suited to them, people have been quick to appreciate remote working advantages.

However, homeowners continuing their career from their private residence also soon realised that their dwelling was not ideally set up for home working. This led many to adapt spare rooms, outbuildings, and extensions into built-for-purpose offices. Read on as we explore why vinyl tile flooring makes an excellent option when fitting out a home office.

Low maintenance and easy to care for

When you need to focus on office work, you need area that is easy to keep clean and tidy. Vinyl tiles are incredibly simple to care for, making for a light cleaning routine. A daily sweep and light vacuuming are all that’s necessary to keep tiles dust free, and a damp cloth or mop can handle any spilled coffee or lunch.

Exceptionally durable

Investing in a home office comes at a price, but vinyl tiling is affordable and hardwearing. This ensures the cost of setting up is returned through years of use when vinyl is chosen. If you’re worried about the wheels or castors on your desk chair damaging flooring, vinyl tiling is a perfect solution. Able to stand up to heavy use, it will ensure you don’t end up with an unsightly office floor covered in scuffs or scratches.

Stylish appearance

Luxury vinyl tiles (LVT) can resemble natural wood and stone for a stylish office space at far more affordable prices than the real materials. It can also be found in an extensive range of colours and patterns to suit the existing décor present in a room, or can be tailored to your individual taste.

Vinyl tiles can be bought in different sizes and shapes, which can be useful for smaller home offices, adding a sense of space and creating a more productive working environment.

Practical properties

Vinyl tile flooring also has intrinsic attributes that make it ideal for a home office. Its cushioned layers combined with an underlay can be particularly effective at dampening noise. This means that whether you are pacing the floor of your office working out a problem or engaging in a video conference call, you can keep your work life separate from your home. This means more privacy for you and less disruption for other members of your family.

To sum up, vinyl tiling will offer you an office flooring that is robust and simple to care for, while creating a stylish but practical area where you can work undisturbed. With an impressive selection of options to choose from, you can be sure that whether you want a modern looking office or a more traditional and timeless appearance, a vinyl tile flooring can answer your ambitions and is well worth considering.

Is laminate a better choice than hardwood flooring?

A solid wood floor has long been a sought-after choice for households seeking to add warmth and an impressive appearance to the interior of their homes. However, in recent years laminate flooring has fast become a go-to alternative for homeowners looking for the aesthetics and durability of wood flooring at lower costs.

In the following sections, we’ll investigate some of the reasons why property owners across the country are increasingly seeing the merits of a laminate floor.

The costs involved in laminate flooring

Options such as laminate allow people to enjoy a stylish and high-quality floor at an affordable price, opening high-end flooring up to a wider demographic. Hardwood flooring is among the most expensive options that a property owner can pick to deck out the rooms of their home. The beauty of laminate is that the latest offerings in this material can efficiently mimic a real wood look and feel at a fraction of the cost. In fact, laminate flooring is roughly around three times less expensive than solid wood. This cost of a hardwood floor involves not just the real wood harvested from trees, but the price of installation.

In most cases, laminate wood is less pricey because its construction involves layers of composite wood compressed at high temperatures with an image of hardwood grain placed on the top. This makes the materials involved less costly but also installations that are around 50% less than those associated with solid wood flooring.

Impressive durability

While hardwood floors are renowned for their longevity, keeping them in optimum condition is another matter altogether. Over time they can accumulate a wide range of scratches and scuff marks which can lessen and dull their appearance. Additionally, real wood does not cope well with excessive moisture, which can make it warp and lead to further damage. For these reasons, many homeowners with parts of their property that are likely to see heavy wear, or be subject to moisture, may choose laminate.

As a rule, more durable floor coverings are simpler to maintain, making laminate an option worth considering. Constructed from pressed wood layers, it is far more resistant to moisture, scratches, and general wear and tear.

Easier to clean

The process of caring for a laminate floor is far simpler than looking after a hardwood floor. Highly specialised products must be used to clean solid wood floors and they require regular attention to stop issues like dust and pet hair clogging gaps between boards. A wide range of store-bought products can be use on laminate flooring, but a cleaning schedule involving regular sweeping and vacuuming will keep them looking in great shape. It’s worth noting that using a brush attachment with a vacuum cleaner is always the safest option when caring for laminate.

From its exceptional durability and ease of care to its more affordable costs for materials and installations, it’s not tricky to see why some homeowners find laminate a more suitable option than hardwood.

New Kings Norton pub features unique carpet

The latest pub opened by JD Wetherspoon is the Navigation Inn in Kings Norton, which features a unique, luxury carpet.

The Wetherspoon pub chain is known for its low prices for food and drink, but no expense is spared when it comes to its carpets. Each pub has its own unique carpet, the design of which is inspired by the local environment.

The Kings Norton pub’s carpet design was influenced by the Guillotine Lock, which is located at the junction of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal and the Stratford-upon-Avon canal. The lock prevents water from flowing in between the different levels of the canals. The lock motif is combined with a traditional pattern that is floral. The carpet design represents the mix of industrial and rural elements in the Kings Norton area.

An offcut of the carpet is displayed on the pub wall in a picture frame that has details about the design. The walls contain many references to the long history of Kings Norton, which includes the Saturday market founded in 1616.

The pub was opened in December 2021 by Gary Sambrook, Northfield MP. According to Birmingham Live, Sambrook said:

“What I love about Wetherspoon's pubs is that they always soak through it the fabric of local history and there's so much of it here in Kings Norton, a real place on the map in Birmingham.”

Having a unique carpet design is very expensive. Fortunately, carpets in the North Wales and Chester areas are available in a wide variety of colours and patterns to suit all tastes.