Wood

Luxury Vinyl Tile VS Ceramic Tiles

Filed Under: Buying

Ceramic tiles have always been a popular choice for household flooring, particularly in warmer climates and rooms such as the kitchen or bathroom. However, new materials such as luxury vinyl tile offer many advantages over ceramic and are easily accessible at any home improvement store or over the internet. They are also easier to install as a DIY project than tiles, as they come in self-adhesive formats that don’t require thin-set or grout which may be difficult to handle for those new to DIY home improvement.

Open Studios Day 5 - Classic Vinyl Flooring — Open Studios Day 5 – Classic Vinyl Flooring (Photo credit: Jacob Whittaker)

There are many other benefits to luxury vinyl tile besides the ease of installation. For example, did you know that this material is soft and warm under your feet, naturally? This makes it perfect for a bathroom or other areas where you will be walking barefoot. It can also be installed with or without grout, in case the idea of cleaning grout regularly doesn’t appeal to you. If you install vinyl tiles with grout most people will confuse them with high quality porcelain, just softer and warmer and less likely to cause people to slip.

Cleaning luxury vinyl tile is also a breeze. This kind of flooring material comes with stain resistant finishings, and fade or wear through warranties that make them a great investment. If you buy an extra pack of luxury tiles when you install the floor you can also use them to replace any tile that chips or cracks. With ceramic tile, if a chip or crack occurs you are stuck with it, and if it happens in a very visible part of the room you may end up having to replace the entire floor which isn’t cheap or convenient. Vinyl is also resistant to water and humidity, so you won’t need to fear accidental spills like you would do if you had installed wood or natural stone tiles.

Luxury vinyl tiles are very versatile. They come in a variety of styles and colours, from 70s psychedelic patterns to more traditional wood and stone imitation. They can be installed with or without grout, though if you choose to install them without the space between the tiles may accumulate dirt, so you will need to be extra careful about keeping it clean. This effect is particularly visible on light coloured vinyl tiles. You can also choose to install a combination of different colours to create a unique pattern on your floor. And if you want, you can combine vinyl luxury planks with tiles to create a wood and tile look that will look like you hired a team of professionals to design your house.

The fact that luxury vinyl tile is affordable doesn’t mean you are more limited in terms of design than when using real tile. You can create inlays, borders and any design your imagination can come up with. This material has excellent flooring properties, and they don’t look cheap or fake looking like older and cheaper vinyl tiles. It is well worth keeping your options open when choosing a new type of flooring tile for your home, as luxury vinyl tile is a great alternative to more traditional materials and offers many benefits.

Cheapest Vinyl Flooring: A Quick Style Fix For Your House

Filed Under: Design

Successful home remodelling on a budget often involves searching around for the best prices on materials, and choosing styles and elements that don’t carry hefty installation costs. Vinyl flooring gets high marks on both regards: the cheapest vinyl floor tiles can cost as low as $1 per square foot, and it can easily be installed by yourself without the need of paying a specialist. Vinyl flooring also offers the benefit of an endless variety of colours and styles that fit any home décor style. If you are looking for the cheapest vinyl flooring, the Internet is often the place to find the best deals.

Vinyl Flooring For Bathrooms

Vinyl has become a popular choice when talking about bathroom flooring for many reasons. Bathroom vinyl flooring is resistant to water and warm to the touch, and comes in many finishes including non-slip or rubber bathroom flooring, which is an added benefit, particularly for the elderly or people with children. Most people prefer to use bathroom flooring vinyl tiles because they are easier to install than rolls, and often can be made to match the ceramic tiles on the walls. Vinyl is also comfortable to walk on, which means it’s nicer than porcelain tile when you need to walk on it barefoot, so this makes it perfect for a bathroom.

When installing vinyl tile in bathrooms it is extremely important to make sure the base surface is perfectly dry, which can be an issue if your bathroom is not very well ventilated or somebody has used it to take a bath just a few hours before you start working. Either do it first thing in the morning, or make sure everybody knows that the bathroom is off limits until you have finished installing your new vinyl floor. Some people opt to put heaters to dry the room before starting work.

Vinyl Bathroom Flooring Ideas

The sky is the limit when talking about the range of colours and textures of bathroom vinyl floor tiles. From ultra-modern, glossy finishes in primary colours to marble imitation, vinyl caters to all tastes. If you love the look of ceramic tile, remember that you can install groutable vinyl tile that looks very similar, but it’s much easier to install.

Light coloured, glossy vinyl tiles can make a small bathroom look much bigger, particularly if you combine them with bright colours on your towels, and light wood textures on cabinets and furniture. While vinyl can imitate natural stone, the cheapest vinyl tiles are not going to trick anybody so it’s better to embrace the natural texture of this material and play the bright colours and glossy textures to your advantage, instead of trying to get a bad imitation of granite or marble that won’t fool anybody.

Vinyl Flooring That Looks Like Hardwood

Love the look of wood, but can’t afford it or are worried that your dog will make a mess of it? Wood vinyl tiles are a popular and affordable option for homeowners looking for pet friendly flooring on a budget. While is true that really cheap vinyl floor tiles won’t fool anybody, vinyl wood planks (particularly hard-wear floating models) imitate wood much better and are easy to clean or even replace if an accident happens.

Wood Vinyl Tiles

You can find vinyl flooring that looks like hardwood, bamboo or even exotic woods that wouldn’t normally be used for flooring. Most people choose to install this kind of flooring instead of laminate wood, as it’s easier to install and cheaper. Keep in mind that it’s very difficult to imitate the natural grain of real wood, where each plank is different, but you can accomplish a similar effect by making sure the tiles are distributed in random patterns, or mixing tiles from different packages.

Classic Styles on Vinyl Flooring

Many people choose vinyl flooring tiles because they can be made to look like stone or ceramic tiles but are cheaper and easier to maintain, as well as more comfortable to walk on barefoot and less slippery when wet. If you are looking for a floor that won’t compete for attention with the rest of the room and will give your home a classic elegance, black and checkerboard vinyl floor tile are two very popular options, as they go with any wall colour.

Black Vinyl Floor Tile

Black floors are a classic, and black vinyl flooring tiles are probably some of the most popular ones on sale. Black vinyl tile flooring comes in different patterns and styles, from dark imitation marble and granite to deep black surfaces or modernist patterns. Even using cheap tiles can make your kitchen go from blah to wow! In a weekend.

Checkerboard Vinyl Flooring

Another classic, black and white vinyl floor tiles can be bought separately or as a pack to accomplish a perfect checked vinyl floor. If the size of the tiles is too big and you are looking for a busier checkerboard effect you can also buy black and white vinyl tile patterns which have two white and two black squares on each tile. Cheap black and white checkerboard vinyl flooring is perfect if you are looking to create a retro or minimalist effect on your home décor, with minimal expense.

Pros and Cons of Wood Plank Vinyl Flooring

Filed Under: Information

Vinyl wood planks are a hybrid between vinyl sheet flooring and pell and stick vinyl square tiles. Resilient as the first, but as easy to install as the second, it also avoid the checkerboard effect vinyl tiles can produce. Wood plank vinyl flooring has a similar format to hardwood laminate flooring, and comes as planks joined together with a tongue and groove cut. Each vinyl flooring wood plank is joined to the others using a click mechanism, and so the surface is much smoother and you don’t need to use vinyl glue to install, making it perfect for quick jobs.

One of the major benefits of wood plank vinyl flooring is the ease of installation and removal. The installation system is also very similar: vinyl wood planks are backed with a rubberized material that extends past the long edge on one side of the plank. This extension is treated with vinyl plank glue so it’s sticky. When you install vinyl plank flooring each plank is laid down overlapping that sticky bit of rubber, creating a staggered texture and a smoother surface. Unlike vinyl tiles, vinyl planks aren’t glued to the subfloor, removal is also easy and doesn’t require the use of glue solvents or other toxic substances to remove the leftover adhesive residue.

Wood vinyl flooring planks get that name because they look like hardwood, and have a similar texture but finding vinyl wood floor planks that can fool somebody into thinking they are real thing can be an expensive challenge. While the pattern may look like hardwood, it still has a plastic sheen to it that is difficult to hide. It comes in a large variety of colours and patterns, resembling all styles of wood, from oak and beech to exotic woods. But it also can be made to look like stone, marble or any other material imaginable. That makes it extremely versatile and suitable for a variety of home decoration projects.

Floating vinyl plank flooring is very durable. Is water resistant, and it won’t chip or warp when properly installed, which makes it extremely valuable for households that have pets or small children. However, the acrylic coating will scratch with normal foot traffic, and after a few months you may start noticing a fine web of scratch marks. You can solve this by using suitable products designed to restore vinyl coating but if you are after a long lasting floor that can endure heavy usage you may prefer to install laminate or hardwood flooring instead. You can reduce the damage by avoiding using outdoor shoes indoors, and sweeping regularly.

Vinyl wood flooring planks are perfect for children’s rooms and task oriented rooms, as the feeling under the feet is much softer than laminate or hardwood and it also has good sound-reduction capabilities. Unlike stone, it has a warm feel to it, which makes bathroom vinyl flooring a very sought after offer as it is a room where you want a floor that is warm and comfortable on naked feet, but wouldn’t install wood due to the risk of water damage. They are also easy to install and remove, and cheap enough that remodelling the floor as your need change over the years is affordable. However, it is not hardwood, and it shows.

The primary disadvantage of wood plank vinyl flooring is just that, the fact that is vinyl and not hardwood. It looks like vinyl, though some luxury versions have their own beauty and can pass for laminate flooring easily. Vinyl is also not suitable for high traffic areas, because it will soon get noticeably scratched, unless you invest on extra-durable vinyl that is coated with a hard wearing protective layer, usually designed for commercial spaces and schools.

Before installing floating vinyl plank flooring, weigh the pros and cons and consider the usage you want to give that new room. Ask for samples and shop around until you find the right texture and pattern that suits your home decoration at a price you are happy to pay. While wood plank vinyl flooring is durable and has its own style of beauty, if you are after a floor that closely imitates hardwood you may feel disappointed after you install it.