Natural Stone Flooring

Natural Stone Flooring
by: Sammer Hakim

Five Handy Flooring Design Tips

Here are a few handy flooring tips to really beautify a room:

Tip #1: If you're laying tile flooring and want to make the room look bigger, use larger sized tiles (18 x 18 or larger) and lay them on a 45 degree angle (diamond pattern). What this does is draw your eye to the two widest points of each tile, giving your flooring the illusion of a larger space. And the larger sized tiles have less grout lines to look at so your flooring doesn't look as 'busy' across your a larger area as say a 12 x 12 would.

Just keep in mind installing tile on a 45 uses more tile because there are more cuts to be made.

Tip #2: If you want a clean, contemporary look, ask your installer to use the narrowest grout lines possible, either a 1/8 or 3/16 and for natural stone 1/16. Larger grout lines give a more rustic, earthy look. And higher gloss (polished) tiles are contemporary whereas heavily grooved and rough give an aged, worn look.

Tip #3: To give your flooring another illusionary trick, lighter colors give the room a more spacious feel while darker colors give it a cozier, smaller feel.

Tip #4: There are many flooring patterns available so don't hesitate to use them! Too many shoppers I met would obsess over what flooring everyone else is doing. This is your home, not anyone else's and you should get the floor that makes you happy. Don't be afraid of not looking like everyone else. That's the whole point! if you want to differentiate a room, then lay different flooring.

Tip #5: I'm a big fan of using matching or contrasting inserts to transform the flooring into a masterpiece. But not many really can create a room. You know, these deco pieces, listellos and natural stone inserts may cost you a couple hundred dollars all up but they give your room an unsurpassed look. Now I strongly recommend when doing these special flooring designs to only hire a certified flooring installer.

DON'T TRY and do them yourself unless you really know what you're doing. I've seen it too many times.

For example, for every insert, you need to make 4 cuts, one for each connecting tile. These cuts need to be pretty much right on, otherwise any unevenness will flash at you right away once its installed. And if you insist on doing it yourself, just remember two very important words: wet saw and diamond blade!

For more tips, please see Flooring Decorating & Shopping Tips

About The Author
Sammer Hakim worked in the US retail flooring industry for several years. He shares his money saving flooring tips and advice at his site Flooring Secrets.