The flooring that you have in your home can really give it a unique or an ordinary look, depending on what you decide to do. Putting carpet all over the house is probably a bad idea, but so could having hardwood floor everywhere. It is all a matter of personal taste, but these days you are not limited to just this or that, you can have a combination of many different flooring materials in your home.



There are a couple of rooms where you should only have tile, linoleum, or a similar non-porous surface, though. This is the bathroom, laundry room, and the kitchen. The only exception in the kitchen is if you decide you want to have carpet tile, but even then there should be a non-porous material underneath it to keep the water from affecting the floor underneath. The bathroom is a bad area for any carpet, since this will be getting wet quite a lot. The best thing to do in these rooms is to have a non-porous floor and small rugs on top.

Hardwood flooring can go in higher traffic areas, since it is easier to take care of than carpet in most cases. Tile can also go in these areas, such as the main hallway. The hallway will have feet going across it every single day, multiple times a day, unlike other rooms in the house.

Natural travertine and other stone can be used in bathrooms on the floor and on walls. These are expensive materials that you can use to give your bathroom a modern, classy appeal. They used to be reserved only for the rich, but have recently come down in price and have become more accessible to the middle class.

Carpet tile is convenient because you can pick the tiles up and replace them as they become damaged or worn or they can just be switched with other pieces that are located in other unseen areas of the room.

Having wall-to-wall carpet in a room is only a good idea for living spaces like dens or studies and it is best that you have visitors and members of the house take off their shoes before walking on it so its lifespan is increased. An area rug in a room with carpet can look alright, but you should reserve an area rug for a room with a hardwood floor, if you can, so it stands out more. The bigger the area rug, the more you will want to use it in a room that does not have carpet.