When you move into a new home, you have so many expenses at the same time and flooring will be one of those that will soak up a lot of cash. You may have marble tiles or slate flooring in mind, but you perhaps you ought to save those kind of aspirations until later unless you have bottomless pockets. Later on you can drool over natural stone, travertine tile and solid oak flooring but for now, you just need to get your floors looking good as quickly as possible without going broke. Here are some ideas to help.
1. Remnants
Carpet prices are quite high these days so if you are hoping to have soft floor coverings in some rooms look for room-sized carpet remnants. These are the pieces of carpet that stores have left over from a large roll which they sell off at a low price and they are one of the easiest types of discount flooring you can buy as they are generally lined up in the store waiting for you. If you are quite flexible about color, you can simply go along with your room sizes and pick out suitable carpet.
2. Carpet Squares
You can generally carpet a room with carpet tiles pretty cheaply and what is more you should be able to install them yourself rather than paying for professional carpet installation services. Of course, they do not look as good as wall to wall carpet in one piece but they will cover an awful floor very quickly without too much expense. Carpet squares have the added advantage that if one gets dirty or damaged you do not have to resort to expensive carpet repair or cleaning. Buy a few extra tiles whenever you choose them and just replace the single tile that is damaged.
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3. Laminate Flooring
If you love the look of wooden floors but they are beyond your budget, think about installing a laminate floor. Although very cheap laminate flooring tends to look (and feel) like plastic, the better quality laminates look great. So maybe oak flooring is not within reach but you can install pretty good looking oak laminate flooring without making your bank manager weep.
4. Disguise Your Floor with a Rug
You can always cover your floor with very cheap flooring such as vinyl sheet flooring that you would not normally use in a room like a living room and then make it beautiful with a floor rug in attractive colors. Visitors will notice your new purple shag rug rather than what lies beneath.
5. Room Sized Rugs
Rather than fitting wall to wall carpet, choose one of the beautiful large rugs you will see around. Not only are rugs cheaper than carpet, as a rule, but you just lay them out on the floor and have no installation costs. In this instance you don’t have to cover the whole floor underneath the rug with new flooring. Simply repair (and perhaps use floor paint) around the edges of the room that can still be seen after your rug is in position.
6. Rug Binding
If you find that large rugs are out of your price range (or even small ones), you can use bound carpet remnants and create a rug from a piece of carpet left over from another room or from a remnant you buy. You will find carpet binding services in your area on the web and they will be able to do this job for you so that you have a large area rug at low cost.
7. Sand Your Floor Boards
One way to have a beautiful cheap floor is to sand and repair the floor boards in your home. Lucky you, if they are made of decent wood and are still looking good. If not, once they are sanded (which is a nasty dusty job) you can always stain and varnish them to get them looking good. If you have concrete floors, you really have to cover them, unfortunately. There are paints you can buy for concrete (meant for a garage floor) but you don’t really want to look like you are living in a garage unless you like the techno-industrial look.
