Deciding to re-floor your home raises a lot of questions: Hardwood or cheaper laminate? Stone tiles or stained concrete? Heated floors or not?
A reputable flooring company will not only help with the installation process but will also help guide you to making the best design choices for your home and budget. Don’t be caught with a floor that won’t stand up to your foot traffic – here are a couple of tips that can help guide you to picking the best flooring company for your needs.
1. Know Your Flooring Options
There are seemingly endless options for flooring materials. However, your lifestyle may warrant certain materials over others. If you have children or pets, you may want to go for the more durable options such as cement or tile, which can stand up to heavy wear and tear and also offer water resistance.
If you are looking for design-forward options, but your budget won’t necessarily allow for hand-scraped hardwood, you may want to consider bamboo or cork flooring. A skilled flooring contractor can help you determine the right flooring options for your family and budget.
2. Know Your Aesthetic
Picture your dream home. Is it bright and artistic? Is it clean, streamlined, and monochrome? Does it draw more on natural elements and finishes? Being able to picture your desired final product can help you more decisively determine what type of flooring to go with. In a lot of ways, your flooring is the foundation to a beautifully cohesive design, so you shouldn’t take the decision lightly.
Still having trouble determining what style you want in your home? You may benefit from hiring an interior designer to help you create the house of your dreams.
3. Pick Your Specialist
Once you know what you want, it’s time to figure out how to accomplish your goal. You wouldn’t hire a laminate specialist to install your bamboo flooring, now would you? Be sure to look for a flooring company that has years of experience installing custom floors of the material that you are looking for.
That’s not the only battle. Hopefully you live in an area with access to more than a couple of home flooring installation specialists. The more, the better. While this means more initial research work for you, it also means that you are more likely to find the best flooring company in town. Be sure to conduct interviews with as many companies as you can and request written quotes for materials and labor costs before you sign any contracts. You can use these quotes to negotiate expenses with whichever company you end up going with.
Be sure to ask as many questions as you can when interviewing each company, and don’t forget to look up these businesses on the Better Business Bureau website, where you can find information about how long the company has been in business, customer reviews and complaints, and average reviews.
4. Be sure to ask the following questions:
• What is the total cost of labor and materials?
• Do you always stick to budget?
• How long will this project take?
• Do you always stick to timeframes?
• Can you refer me to previous customers?
• What is your guarantee?
• How long is your guarantee?
Ask anything and everything you can think of. When it comes to expensive projects like a flooring renovation, you can never be too careful, and you’re sure to thank yourself later.
5. Designing Your Home from the Ground Up
Your floors are the basis of the entire design of your home – don’t skimp and choose the cheapest installation company you can find. Even the cheaper flooring options can last you years to come if they are installed correctly, which is why your flooring company matters.
I appreciate the advice you shared on finding a company that has years of experience installing the type of floor that you want. In addition to that, I would say that it would be a good idea to find a company that can send technicians back to your home when you need repairs done or refinishing work performed. Sticking with the same company seems like a good idea because this would ensure that they perform quality work.