Transitioning Flooring in Your Home

MODERN AREA RUG by Karastan

CREATING SEAMLESS ROOM TRANSITIONS

When it comes to choosing the perfect flooring for your home, finding a one-size-fits-all solution can be a challenge. Therefore, in many homes, you’ll find varying flooring solutions as you move from room to room.

Each space has unique needs. Bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms typically need waterproof and durable flooring such as tile or laminate flooring. But for other spaces, like your bedroom or living room, you might be in search of warmth and comfort, so a carpet or a warm-toned hardwood are likely contenders.

With so many different elements at play, it often makes sense to choose multiple flooring options to fit the needs of each space. When this is done well, it creates a seamless design while still allowing for separate spaces. When done incorrectly, however, the change in flooring can feel abruptly jarring and, in some cases, can cause a tripping hazard at the threshold.

So how do you design a seamless flooring transition? With so many flooring options and factors to consider, it can feel like a daunting task. However, seamless room transitions are easy to create when you follow simple guidelines for choosing the best floors for your space.

CHOOSING YOUR FLOORS

The first thing you need to do is identify your primary flooring. If you’re starting from scratch or conducting major home renovations that aren’t limited to just one room, your primary flooring is simply going to be your first choice—whether that be hardwood, laminate, tile, vinyl, or carpet. If you are going to renovate one room only, your primary flooring will be the floor you are not changing, that borders the room you are changing. Identifying your primary flooring choice is essential for a seamless room transition, because you’ll base your secondary floor on your primary floor.

Your secondary floor may be the more difficult choice of the two. With your primary flooring, you have only to consider the needs of the space and your personal taste, but you must weigh your secondary flooring as an option not only for the designated space, but in relation to the primary flooring. So, what questions should you ask yourself as you design your room transition?

WHAT ARE THE NEEDS FOR MY SPACE?

To narrow down your flooring choices, you should first consider the purpose of the space. What you plan to do in a room plays a huge role in determining the right kind of flooring. Is it a living room that doubles as an at-home game room? You may want a floor such as carpet or engineered hardwood that absorbs sound for those lively game nights but is durable enough for a high-traffic area. Will it be exposed to a lot of moisture? It may be beneficial to consider waterproof flooring options, like laminate, vinyl, or tile. Do you want your bedroom to feel warm and cozy, but need a smooth surface for your corner home-office? A warm-toned hardwood or wood-appearing laminate would be great options to explore.

As you determine your wants and needs for the space, narrow down your flooring choices to whatever solutions fit best. Doing so will help you decide on a complementary secondary floor. After determining the kind of flooring you want, you can consider other elements that are important for creating a seamless transition.

WHAT COLOR FLOORING SHOULD I CHOOSE?

There are a few things to consider when selecting colors for your flooring transition. First, consider the color of your primary flooring. If it’s wood or has a wood-like appearance, what are the undertones? Is it a warm brown, or is it a cool grey? Is the flooring dark, light, or an in-between shade? Is it one solid color, or composed of multiple colors, or shades of the same color? These questions will help you determine what color your secondary flooring should be.

It’s best to err on the side of complementary, but not identical. Oftentimes, when you try to make an exact color match you might create the impression that you tried to match but couldn’t. It’s better practice to choose a color that’s complementary and has similar undertones to the original to avoid clashing. For example, if your hallway flooring is a warm, medium-toned hardwood and you want carpet in the bedroom, you could go lighter in color with a warm beige or go darker with a deep brown. Similar but different is a good rule to follow as you create your room transition.

DO I WANT OR NEED A TRANSITION STRIP?

RESISTA SOFT STYLE CHASING THE STARS IN BERKSHIRE

by Flooring America/Flooring Canada

A transition strip is the piece of material that covers the border between one room and the next. Specifically, a transition strip connects one kind of flooring to another. Although they are often made of wood, they also come in metal, aluminum, or vinyl. If you chose floors of the same material, like two different hardwood floors, it may be that you don’t need a transition strip between the rooms. However, if your floors are different materials, like carpet and laminate, you will need a transition strip to account for varying floor heights and to smoothly transfer from one floor type to the next. There are three major types of transition strips; which type you choose will depend on the two floors you’ve chosen to bridge together.

• T-Bar is made of solid wood and is good for transitioning from hardwood floors to another flooring with a hard surface and a similar height, like another hardwood or ceramic tile.

• Reducer Molding is also often made of wood and is used to bridge two floors that are different in height, such as laminate and carpet.

• End Bar is used to bridge the gap between hardwood or laminate with another type of flooring, like carpet. Like the reduced molding, it is designed to bridge the gap between floors of varying thicknesses.

GO WITH YOUR GUT

Above all else, the best room transition is one made with two floors you love. Be sure to choose flooring that fits not only your needs and those of your space, but also suits your unique home design vision. While considering these helpful guidelines, know that if you go with your gut, there are ways to seamlessly transition any two flooring options.