Home Design Ideas: Top Flooring Trends for 2012 - By: Anita Ferguson

New flooring immediately transforms any space from blah to bam! For this reason, putting in new floors is one of the fastest ways to update a property. If you're hoping to beautify your home in the New Year, review the 2012 hardwood flooring styles we've listed below.

1. Flooring for outdoor applications. Creating an attractive outdoor living area expands your livable space without racking up costs. For this reason, outdoor living continues to appeal to consumers who can't afford to upgrade to an entirely new home. Manufacturers have complied with this trend by creating outdoor flooring that snaps together easily to make a tough yet attractive surface.

2. Customized floors. Today you can customize your sneakers and your digital device - why not floors? The modern flooring industry offers customization by means of endless choices in flooring textures, designs, and materials. Especially if you ask your flooring provider for personalization options, you can find flooring that will reflect your unique spirit.

3. Humidity-proof engineered wood flooring. Hardwood flooring applications were limited by the natural contraction and expansion of wood with climate conditions - until now, that is. Today's builders and designers can use engineered wood flooring in moisture-prone areas. Engineered wood combines bonded plywood and a veneer of finished wood. It will not warp or twist with moisture or temperature shifts, meaning that engineered wood can be installed in bathrooms, kitchens, and other problematic parts of the home.

4. Large pieces of tile and wood flooring. Large, interlocking pieces are all the rage in today's flooring industry. How large? Some ceramic tile flooring is now available in 3x3-foot pieces. The result is fewer grout lines and less maintenance. Moreover, large tiles can make a space appear larger. Hardwood flooring producers are also creating wider, longer floorboards, some 7 feet long and 7.5 inches wide.

5. The hand-scraped wood flooring look. If you're worried about unsightly scratches in your wood flooring, here's a novel approach: embrace scratches as a purposeful part of your design. This is certainly not the last year in which hand-scraped hardwood flooring enjoy popularity. Designers and consumers alike appreciate the unique character that scraping brings to wood flooring, and property owners adore the fact that even the toughest household can't make pre-scratched wood look bad.

High labor costs make hand-scratched wood flooring expensive. For a less expensive alternative, choose laminate floors, which can expertly imitate the look and feel of hand-scraped wood flooring.

6. Porcelain tile flooring. Porcelain tile is gaining popularity for a few reasons: it's low-maintenance, durable, and attractive. In contrast with ceramic tile flooring, porcelain tile rarely becomes scratched or chipped, mainly because porcelain is denser than ceramic. Moreover, porcelain tiles are available in a wide range of styles, and at affordable prices.

Indeed, today's porcelain tile is even capable of creating a classic marble flooring look. By digitally scanning marble patterns onto porcelain tiles, designers can evoke a classic style at a reasonable cost. Even wood textures can be achieved with porcelain tiles! Indeed, because porcelain tiles will not stain, break, or scratch (unlike actual wood flooring) many consumers are choosing porcelain tiles over hardwood flooring.

Fresh new floors will enliven any home. If you follow the trends for wood and ceramic tile flooring listed above, your new floors will be on the cutting edge of fashion.

About the Author

When it comes to their hardwood floors, Portland residents look for unique styles as well as quality. For some interesting ideas of ways to make your wood floors different than the next, visit Area Floors' website at http://www.AreaFloorsOnline.com.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Anita-Ferguson/198443

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