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  1. Do you know what’s hiding under your carpets?

  2. Do you know how to complete the desired effect for your floor? - Part 1

  3. Do you know how to complete the desired effect for your floor? - Part 2

 

 

 

 

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Do you know what’s hiding under your carpets?

 

One of the selling points of the house we just moved into was the fact that all new carpets had been fitted within the last year. Excellent, that’s a cost I won’t have for a few years. So many times you hear that people have had to make a major spend on flooring when moving house.

Most of the rooms downstairs are fitted with carpet, although the hallway has a wooden parquet floor with a small carpet rug matching the stair carpet. All the bedrooms had fitted carpet, the bathrooms all tiled, had vinyl interlock flooring that made it look like they were stone tiles, they matched perfectly with the tiling on the walls.

The only thing that I was going to have to do was re-decorate some of the rooms downstairs to our taste. It was only when we talked about our taste in the dinning room I noticed that it also had a wooden parquet floor, that’s two in the house. It had obviously not seen polish or cleaning for some years and we discussed covering it with a carpet.

I suggested to my wife that before we did that I could call on some advice from a local flooring company I knew, who offered flooring services as part of the business offering. I called Shorefloors Ltd in West Moors, Dorset and asked if they had someone who could pop round and advise me on my two wooden floors.

It wasn’t long before the chap from Shore floors knocked at the door, and on entering remarked on the fact that the hallway was indeed a wooden parquet floor of some quality and that it would be expensive to buy a floor like that today. On looking at the floor in the dining room his remarks were much the same with some additional comments about skimming buffing and polishing to bring them back to their full…"Hang on a minute he said. This is a false wall here between the dining room and the lounge what flooring is in that room?"

Oh it’s fitted carpet I said. "May I just lift one corner, he asked?" We allowed him to do so and to our surprise and along with his exclamations of "I thought so" we discovered that the lounge was also a high quality wooden parquet floor covered by a fitted carpet. We are now in process of having the floors maintained to bring them back to their former glory.

I don’t know how long you have lived in your house or if you have ever lifted your fitted carpets. In order for you to answer the question `do you know what’s hiding under your carpets?...` It may be wise to do so…

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Do you know how to complete the desired effect for your floor? - Part 1

The decision as to what type of flooring came easily and I was happy with my decision to use vinyl tiles. However, I was not prepared for the question of how I would like to complete the desired effect on my floor. When you are not a flooring expert, this question can seem to be nonsense, because to me the obvious answer was that once the vinyl tiles were laid wall to wall that was the effect that I wanted to achieve.

“Not so” said the Shorefloors salesman, “there are any number of effects that we can incorporate into your vinyl tile floor. We call them strips and they are placed between tiles to create a natural or grouting effect or to enhance the overall design of your floor.”

It transpired that there are design strips, feature strips and metallic strips. There are borders in the form of tramline decorative or custom-made borders. As if that wasn’t enough, some manufacturers have a complete range of borders in the form of an assortment of standard decorative tiles. These themselves can be subtle light tones to distinct colour contrasts.

Have you ever experienced extreme confusion…?

As I looked at the Karndean vinyl tile I had selected for my new floor, I now needed to understand how to complete my desired effect.

Design Strips

As a decorative strip the most effective is a design strip, it will normally be cut from an actual tile or wood plank and needless to say there will be a versatile pallet of colours from which to choose.

Feature Strip

They come in a range of colours and can be used to give the effect of a natural grout line. By using them to create subtle borders of ships checking effect.

Metallic Strips

They can give a contemporary feel to any floor and are normally offered in differing widths.

Still confused? I was. At this point I thought that cost was an element of my buying decision and I wanted a simple and affordable way of creating a decorative edging
around my room…

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Do you know how to complete the desired effect for your floor? - Part 2

Anyone reading this article without reading part one, will probably wonder what I am babbling about. So, just to recap. During the process of buying vinyl flooring, I had been asked the question of how I would like to complete the desired effect on my floor, not being a flooring expert, this question had seemed to me to be nonsense. In my mind the decision had been made, because once the vinyl tiles were laid wall to wall that was the effect that I wanted to achieve.

“Not so” said the Shorefloors salesman had said, “there are any number of effects that we can incorporate into your vinyl tile floor. We call them strips and they are placed between tiles to create a natural or grouting effect or to enhance the overall design of your floor.”

In part one I outlined in detail what was meant by ‘strips’ and in this part I will outline my new knowledge of understanding what is meant by borders.

One other piece of information you may need in order to understand this article is that I had chosen Karndean vinyl tiles for my new floor.

Borders were described to me as a way of adding personality to the floor. I think I commented something along the lines “that I wanted to walk on it, not get to know it” Needless to say borders appeared to be available in a wide range of colours and designs.

Tramline Borders

A simple and affordable way, to create an attractive and decorative edge around your floor. Tramlines are easily chosen and can be made up of a combination of designs.

Decorative Borders

These borders are more ornate and more complex in design. Certainly they add a great deal of style to your new floor.

Custom Made Borders

Knowing that a Karndean vinyl floor can have both personality and style by the inclusion of borders it should come as no surprise to learn that the expense of a custom made border makes it unique and individual.

My final decision was based on my original reasoning of cost and value for money. Do you know what I chose?

I can now answer the original question Do you know how to complete the desired effect for your floor? Yes, I would like a tramline border with two close lines surrounding the whole floor.

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