Newbie to flooring. Please help - light or dark flooring? DIY?

13 years ago

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum. :) I was hoping if some of you experts could please help me. I have this disgusting old dark beige carpet in the house, and I've always admired the look of laminate and hardwood floors. I'm slowly redecorating the house. I love that sleek, modern, zen feel. Hate clutter. I prefer a minimalist and streamlined look. Not a lot of things. Just a few pieces of modern furniture and a couple of accents.

Years ago, someone did one room in the house in this light beech laminate flooring, which I really like, except it seems to show hairs and dust easily (everyone in the house is dark-haired!).

I want to do the rest of the house, but I'm not sure if I should go with a dark brown laminate, the same light beech color to match that one room, or even a brown-ebony look. Personally, I'm not a fan of the medium oak look, but who knows, maybe that is the right one to pick!

To give you guys an idea of my design aesthetic, here are links to a look I love and am trying to go for:

http://www.bandelle.com/blog/wp-content/themes/cutline-3-column-split-11/images/rachel_zoe_living.jpg

http://www.bergproperties.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/07-233257-9.jpg

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/uimages/la/110309_guesswho_LivingWidex.jpg

-Does anyone have any advice as to which color I should go for to better achieve the look I want? I read online that dark colors show hair and dust more, but with the light wood I do have in one room, I find it shows hair and dust easily, too.

-Should I try to match the rest of the house to that one room with the light beech laminate? I'm afraid it'd look weird if they don't match.

-I've been considering the IKEA Tundra because it's a really good price, but I've also been looking at the Home Depot Allure vinyl wood-lookalike line. I'm trying to do this myself one room at a time, but I have no experience doing this (I did just buy a book on how to install laminate flooring, though). Should I consider waiting to save enough to hire someone to do this?

Sorry for all the questions. :) Thank you!

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Comments (5)

glennsfc
13 years ago
If you like dark-colored flooring, then go for it! Just keep most of your walls white or light-colored.
idrive65
13 years ago
Dark flooring is very dramatic and beautiful. However if you look closely at the links you provided, the floors shown look dark because they're in shadow. If you look closer to the windows, the floors are a quite a bit lighter.

Dark floors with a shiny surface and lots of light will show more dust/hair than matte finish medium tones, but if you like dark floors and don't mind cleaning them (or seeing the dust) then get what you like.

If you have pets, match the floor to their fur. :)
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cyndo
13 years ago
I'm no expert, but I really like the look of dark flooring when there's a lot of natural light like in your photos.

The snap-together floating floors are really easy to install, especially if you have really level subfloors. On the other hand, less than level can be a nightmare and involves a lot of extra remedial work. I did most of the flooring in my house and my husband did all of the remedial work. Lucky me.

If you are thinking about doing this one room at a time, I would settle on one type of wood or wood-look flooring for the entire house and not mix different flooring colors from one room to the next.
moderncalm
Original Author
13 years ago
idrive65: You're right. They DO look lighter in the sunlight. :) I don't have much sun coming into my house, so I guess the dark wood would be okay. But after reading lots of comments by people saying they wish they hadn't used dark flooring, I am leaning towards the light Tundra Maple.

Cyndo: Glad to hear! My subfloors are very level, it seems, so I hope it won't be too painful to install the flooring!

Any tips on what kind of underlaying I should use? I see the black and pink spotty foam at Home Depot, but I also found that IKEA sells this plastic underlaying next to the boxes of laminates. Thanks!
cyndo
13 years ago
The proper underlayment probably depends on the type of flooring product you are using. You should probably do some more research on that.

Our all wood floors were put down on top of radiant floor heating and the underlayment was some kind of sticky rubberized mesh that came on rolls. It seemed suspiciously thin to me at the time, but it's not noisy to walk on or anything so I guess it's doing what it needs to do.