Floor design: choose and combine

When designing, floor design is very important. It can only be a background, or it can draw attention to itself. It all depends on how you see your home. In connection with the vision, the floor design is being developed. First, a tone is chosen - dark or light, then materials are selected and only then the technical aspects are decided.

Floor color and interior

Floor design begins with the choice of color. To begin with, not so much color as tone: light or dark floor will be in the room. There are many selection criteria. This is the style of the room, its dimensions, your desires.

In recent decades, the light floor has been in clear favor. It is typical for most fashionable styles of apartment and house decoration. Light flooring should be of Scandinavian design, minimalism, modern style, pop art and even popular provence and loft. They make a light, and sometimes shiny, floor both in exotic hi-tech and in some no less exotic directions.

Loft-style light floor - carefully aged wood

Dark floors are appropriate in classic interiors and other "historical" trends - baroque, gothic, rococo, etc., they are also inherent in eastern ethnic trends - rooms decorated in Japanese and Chinese styles. If you know exactly in what way you want the setting, it’s easier for you. If you haven't decided yet, you will have to figure it out further.

Dark floor is more inherent in classics

Style is not all that you can focus on. Different floor colors create different sensations. Light floor covering makes the interior light and airy, optically expands the boundaries of the room. That is, this is an option for small rooms.

But at the same time, the situation is "cold". The room is light and light, but the "comfort" in the classical perception will not work. But you can put dark or bright furniture, some outlandish accessories. On a light background, all this does not hurt the eyes and brings a share of comfort. It might be better after a busy day.

The interior is light but cold

On the contrary, the dark floor is heavier and more mundane. It gives a feeling of coziness and stability, but in a small room, and even with low ceilings, there is a "box" effect. The comfort becomes oppressive and heavy. You can compensate for this effect with very light walls and ceilings, and an abundance of light. If you want a dark floor in a small space, the furniture and doors should be light.

Gloomy….

Large areas with high ceilings with dark floors can work well with dark furniture and doors, but with bright multi-zone lighting and very light floors and ceilings. This is not an option for standard apartments.

And finally, let's move on to the practical component. Everyone has long known that dirt is more visible on a light surface. This is also true for the floor and will have to be cleaned more often. But it will be possible to save on electricity and lighting devices: with an equal amount of light, the illumination in a room with a light floor is better. And this, by the way, is also one of the selection criteria. If the room is directed to the south, you can "shade" it with a dark floor, and vice versa - in the north, lighten it with a white or light gray floor.

Floor materials and design

Undoubtedly, the most popular are two types of flooring - laminate and ceramic tiles. Laminate is used most often in residential premises, some of its types are also suitable for technical specifications.Ceramic tiles, on the contrary, are present in technical rooms - bathroom, kitchen, hallway, corridor, and are almost never used in residential ones. These two floor coverings are used in almost every renovation and designs are based primarily on these materials.

Laminate in the interior and its types

This flooring is just an imitation of wood, tiles, parquet. But current technologies make it possible to repeat the texture with high accuracy. If we consider that the coverage is relatively inexpensive, and there are a lot of options, the service life is about 5-8 years, its popularity becomes clear.

It is impossible to count how many wood-like laminate colors exist. There is an imitation of any breed in any color, with different board widths. So you can find the required color for any request. But there are also non-standard colors. For example, a laminate that imitates tiles or parquet. It is not found so often and not in all manufacturers, therefore many do not know about such colors. It is produced not in the form of rectangles, but in the form of squares. Below are some examples of such unusual colors.

But wood-like laminate looks no less advantageous in most interiors. It is available in both light and dark colors. So it will not be difficult to find the option you need.

Room design with light laminate

There is a laminate in a traditional beige and brown tones, and there are ultra-fashionable bleached colors - bleached oak, ash, pine and others. They are used to create those very light and unobtrusive interiors in modern style, minimalism and others.

Fashionable bleached color

Light floor gives lightness to the interior

Light gray flooring is present in many modern interiors

This is a bleached ash tree. Warm, slightly beige shade

Dark laminates look just as good. They completely recreate the wood surface.

Dark laminate flooring looks just as good

Traditional color creates a cozy atmosphere

Solid. Is not it?

Suitable also for some modern interiors

Tile

We can talk for a long time about the design options for ceramic tiles. The number of collections tends to infinity, different sizes, shapes, colors, shades, plain-colored, with ornaments, drawings, etc ... and also their various combinations. In addition, there are unusual options that have become popular over the past few years.

The trend of the last year is the use of tiles imitating wood on the floor. Such are the oddities - in the laminate they imitate tiles, in ceramics - wood. Nevertheless, wood-effect tiles are used by fashion designers in the kitchen or in the hallway.

On the floor - tiles imitating wood

So the question is solved: lay tiles or laminate on the floor in the kitchen or hallway. The tile is more convenient to use, because even the best laminate does not like water, swells and swells. If its quality is normal, after a while the coating returns to normal. But you can spill water or other liquid again ... So they laid the tiles on the floor, fortunately, a warm floor appeared and in this version it was comfortable in the kitchen (and in the bathroom). It was difficult to reconcile the "wood" pattern of the laminate and the smooth, shiny tiles. But now with ceramic wood-like tiles this problem has been solved. The joint is made many times easier.

Another option for the kitchen

Tiles with uneven edges look interesting on the floor. If you rub the seams with a contrasting composition in color, it turns out very expressive.

Figured tiles on the floor

Honeycomb tiles are rare. Hexagons are difficult to stack, but the effect is unexpected.

Hexagonal shape

If we talk about the more traditional shapes - squares and rectangles, then they get a very interesting floor decor. The technique with large and small tiles has long been known, however, with new collections, a different look is obtained.

Welcome familiar, new tile design

Another option

For some country styles, patterned tiles will work. Recently, the combination of brown and white has become more popular.

In this interior, floor design is key

Laying such a tile is also not easy: the match must be up to a millimeter. All deviations are noticeable and violate harmony. So the master must be highly qualified.

Another option, but here on a white background brown patterns

When planning the design of a tile floor, remember that in this case the following rule works: either the floor will be bright, and the rest of the interior will be calm, or vice versa. You can make the floor and furniture the same color or match the doors to match (or a very close shade). It is not worth choosing a color regardless of the other setting, or you will end up with something indigestible.

Laminate and tile joint

The most problematic areas when developing a floor design yourself is the combination of two different coatings. Let me give you one piece of advice. If you have no artistic inclinations, make the joint even. It looks much better than the indistinct curved lines that you can sometimes see.

Most of all it resembles a puddle

The practical purpose of the tiles near the front door is clear: they are easier to clean. But the form was chosen completely unsuccessfully. In this case, the site could be extended even to the second door and make the joint, maybe slightly curved, if the straight lines are categorically not like.

The same task - tiles near the front door - solved more successfully

They try not to use the lugs, as in the photo. But if the thickness of the coatings differs, this cannot be avoided. However, shiny stripes are not used in modern designs. Select the color as close as possible to either the tile or the laminate. Ideally, it should match. Then the rounded lines do not "cut" the eyes.

If you are joining a different floor covering from two rooms, connect them under the door. To align, use a cork backing that is painted in the color of the laminate or tile. It turns out a neat seam. In this case, it is important to trim the edges evenly. They can be sharpened to match.

If you still want jagged lines, then they are drawn for a reason. They can repeat a line on the ceiling, outline the contour of furniture, connect two specific points. In any case, the connection should be logical. In the photo below, you can see a good example. Although the color and character of the surface is very different, the repetition of color in the furniture harmonizes this. The alignment line, if you look closely, goes around the furniture. Everything is natural, and therefore "does not hurt the eye."

Successful connection of tiles and laminates

This is the basic rule: when choosing floor coverings, pay attention to the fact that the colors fall into the same group and are compatible, as well as that they are repeated in the elements of the decor of the premises.

Parquet

Parquet is beautiful and prestigious. But its not the lowest price, the features of operation (regular polishing, periodic scraping, painting and moisture / temperature expansion) have led to the fact that parquet is used much less often than imitations. But the plasticity of wood allows you to create a very beautiful floor, besides, even the atmosphere in the rooms is different, and the sensations with bare feet are also different. Therefore, despite all the difficulties, he finds his admirers.

Artistic parquet - beautiful, but looks only in large rooms

Different types of wood have different textures and different shades.In addition, there are many tints that allow you to tint the wood to the desired shade. This is how whole paintings are collected on the floor, which are called "artistic parquet". Such a coating is very beautiful, but it requires large volumes of premises and costs a lot of money.

You can do something less complicated. Moreover, it cannot be said that a simpler parquet looks less beautiful. In this case, the wood texture comes to the fore, and not the folded ornament made of it.

Easier to perform, but no less beautiful

Several options for a beautiful parquet floor in the photo gallery.