Adding new flooring to a home is not a small decision. Homeowners must carefully research the types of flooring available and make the right choice. It’s not cheap to install new flooring, and it’s not easy to remove if you don’t like it either. Before purchasing new flooring, it’s important to understand the type of flooring material that’s available. There are loads that modern consumers can choose from. Each material offers unique qualities that may or may not suit the room well. Here is the rundown on the most popular flooring materials and the benefits each offer:
Wood
Most homeowners prefer to have hardwood floors. Wood is commonly priced as flooring thanks to the natural beauty. Wood is also a very durable type of flooring material that can add a classic, stylish look to any room. You can buy hardwood flooring in different types of material, including mesquite, pecan and chinquapin.
The type of wood can differ from region to region. Solid hardwood requires a subfloor for nailing. Wood offers many advantages, including ability to refinish as many times as you want. But, wood is not suitable for every room, especially rooms where there’s excessive moisture.
Bamboo 
Bamboo isn’t technically a type of hardwood. It is considered a type of grass. Bamboo is engineered as planks that can offer as much durability as hardwood. Bamboo can give any room a charming, unique look. Vertical planks can provide a fine grained appearance to any area. Bamboo is known to be quite tough as well. Also, bamboo flooring is considered more eco-friendly than hardwood, because it’s easy to grow bamboo forests.
Laminate
If you want a low maintenance flooring material, go with a laminate floor. These floors come in a variety of patterns and colors so you can add laminate to any room in the house. Laminate is basically engineered wood where a top layer is backed by a number of compressed fiber or plywood layers underneath. This construction makes laminate floors very stable. The top layer of laminate floors is not actual wood, but a plastic coating. It realistically looks like many types of materials, though. You can get laminate flooring to look like wood, stone, ceramic or stained concrete.
Linoleum
Linoleum floors are soft and quite easy to clean. Linoleum is made from biodegradable material such as cork and linseed oil. Linoleum with mineral oils is quite colorful. This material is very safe for homes and is also environmentally friendly. This type of flooring is easy to install, and feels great underneath feet.
Ceramic Tile
Ceramic tile is a very versatile flooring material that you can get in just about any shape, size, color or print. Ceramic tiles floors are sturdy and highly stable. Tiles are also really easy to clean and do not stain easily. Ceramic tile flooring is suitable for homeowners on a budget, but there are also expensive options available. Tiles are preferred for high-traffic rooms such as the kitchen and the bathroom.
Read carefully through the above materials, and choose the type that best meets your flooring needs.
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