Archives for March 2013

The Best Cheap Garage Flooring Choices

Filed Under: Buying

You can have cheap garage flooring without sacrificing quality, as long as you are aware of your choices and know where to cut costs without sacrificing quality. Choosing high quality flooring for your garage means it will be able to withstand the tough wear and tear this kind of surface usually suffers, but there are affordable garage flooring options that promise a good balance between toughness and price.

Paint

There is nothing cheaper than just painting your garage concrete floors with concrete paint, and repainting as necessary when the wear and tear shows too much for your tastes. Paint is only suitable if your floor is in good condition, and it’s more of an aesthetic improvement that won’t protect the underlying concrete or repair damage to it.

Rubber Garage Flooring

Rubber is the least expensive garage flooring option, but it’s also the less versatile. It is perfect if you intend to use your garage as a workshop, storage facility or even a home gym, but it’s too susceptible to petroleum based products (oils and grease) and heat, and can melt if you park a car hot from the outside. Not pretty! It is softer than a concrete floor and has good insulating and sound buggering qualities, so it’s the perfect flooring for a kid’s playing ground.

PVC Roll-Out Flooring

PVC or mat flooring is slightly more expensive than rubber, but it makes a notable difference in terms of durability and resistance. It is also extremely easy to install without professional help, which makes it one of the best cheap garage flooring choices provided you aren’t too bothered about the looks. To install PVC garage flooring you don’t even need adhesive, and you can pick up the mats and hose them outside if they get really dirty. They also come in a variety of colours and patterns, which means you can achieve a bit of a designer look. But admittedly, it looks very much like you just covered your garage floor with overlapping PVC mats, and not particularly pretty.

PVC Garage Floor Tile

PVC or high quality vinyl flooring tile is easier to install than epoxy, while giving a more aesthetically pleasing result than Roll-out flooring. Interlocking tiles create a seamless look, and can be installed by anybody with a minimum ability at DIY, time and the right cutting tools. They come in a variety of colours and patterns that you can combine, so it’s perfect if you intend to use the garage as a workshop or care about how the flooring looks like. Cheap garage PVC tiles mar and dent relatively easy, but there are also self-correcting versions that will recover their shape after a few days.

Epoxy

Installing an epoxy flooring on your garage is not a task for the inexperienced and it’s not cheap, but it looks great and protects the floor underneath, as well as lasting ages impervious to wear and tear, stains, grease and chemicals that will inevitable fall on it if you like tinkering with your car on your garage. You should look for high quality epoxy, and be prepared to spend time installing it adequately. For example, the floor needs to be perfectly clean before installing, and that may require using substances and tools that require more than a passing familiarity with DIY. But the result is absolutely worth it, and if you are looking to increase the value of your home this is the best option.

Five Home Decorating Tips

Filed Under: Design

They say a change is as good as a holiday. While changing your home does not make you feel like you are lying on a beach sipping Pina Colcada’s, the change will keep your home looking fresh and exciting. Here are five home decorating tips:

Number One – Lights Fittings and Bulbs

One of the easiest ways to change the look and feel of a room is by adding a new light fixture. Change both the ceiling light fixture and your table lamps to give your room a new look. Be sure that the ceiling and table fittings match each other and compliment the style of the room. Remember when changing the light fitting, and bulb, to turn the electricity off at the switch board.

Number Two – Add Cushions

Another simple way to give your home a facelift is by adding new cushions to beds, benches, couches and armchairs. Ensure that the cushions compliment the room and the colour of the chair. For example: ensure that only one of the three – room wall, chair and cushion- is brightly coloured, as too many colours compete and end up leaving the room looking uninviting and unattractive.

Number Three – Change the Curtains

Buying new curtains or simply swapping curtains from different rooms is an easy way to give the room a new look. Ensure that the curtains match the room style and design. Furthermore, change the curtain railing, rings and brackets will make the curtains appear new and crisp up the look of the room.

Number Four – Give the Room a Fresh Coat of Paint

Give the room a fresh coat of paint, this will keep the walls looking new, add a fresh layer of protection and hide the marks that have appeared over the years. When painting the inside of your home, remember to choose a colour that matches the furniture, flooring and outside colour of the home. The three best colours to paint the inside of your home are: light pink, baby blue or cream.

Number Five – Paintings and Art Work

One of the best and most cost-effective ways to decorate your home is to move the existing items around in your home. Move paintings and artwork into different rooms and watch the room transform. Other items that you can move around in the home are: clocks, glassware, candle sticks and cabinets.

Giving your home a face-lift is easier to do that you think. Use these five tips to give your home a new and fresh look and feel. Remember to change your home every 3-6 months to ensure that you never get bored again.

I am Greg Jones: a gym lover, sports nut and DIY guy. I recently decided to give my home a facelift and these are five of the decorating tips I decided to try. My wife and I bought new homeware items to go with the painting and I feel as if we are living in a completely new home. Make the change and get excited to be at home.

Four Ways To Keep Your New Floor Looking Great

Filed Under: Maintenance

If you have just had a new floor covering installed in one of the rooms in your home you’ll understandably want to take great care of it to avoid any mishaps. And whilst it might not last forever there are a few things you can do to avoid damage over the first few months of its life.

Remove shoes

Many people don’t remove their shoes when they enter the home. This is despite them walking over a multitude of unclean surfaces throughout the day. The primary way carpets and other floor coverings are damaged is due to the debris which is brought indoors on the soles of your shoes. And the easiest way to stop this spreading throughout the home is to remove your shoes and put on slippers or ‘indoor shoes’ when you enter the home.

Entrance matting

If you have good quality entrance mating at all entry and exit points of the home all the members of the family can wipe their feet before they come into the house. Many people choose to install a permanent entrance mat such as coir mating and fit this into the space between the door and the start of the floor covering. But washable entrance mats can also work equally as well with turtle mats working especially well at removing dirt, dust and debris from the soles of shoes.

Vacuum regularly

It doesn’t matter if you have carpet, wooden floor or vinyl flooring the floor surface should be swept or vacuumed regularly to remove debris from its surface. Any debris on the floor’s surface can cause damage to its structure. If you have a carpet, dirt can find its way deep within the carpet’s pile and cause dirty marks or stains which can be difficult to remove. If you have vinyl flooring, grit and small stones can be compressed into the vinyl surface creating a mottled effect. And if you have wooden flooring the grit or debris from shoes can cause scratches on the surface which will tarnish the floor’s look.

Mop hard floors and get carpets cleaned

If you have a hard floor surface such as tiles or vinyl it will need to be mopped on a regular basis to remove dirt, dust and stains from its surface. Leaving debris or stains on any floor surface will only cause damage to the floor and spoil its look. Likewise if you have a carpet it can be a good idea to get it cleaned on a regular basis by a professional cleaning company to keep it looking like new.

Jane Day is a mother of four and knows how difficult it can be to keep on top of the cleaning. She used www.flooring.uk.com when she needed to install entrance matting.