Design Tips

Laminate

• The beauty of laminate is that it looks nearly identical to natural stone or wood and can be used to achieve the same design effects without the vulnerability. Laminate allows you to get the look of rare wood species or costly stone such as granite at a fraction of the price. 

• Since laminate replicates the look and feel of natural flooring, consider the design and texture of the original material before making your decision. A rough-hewn stone look brings a rustic element of nature to a room; polished stone adds sophistication; while wood lends warmth and comfort.

• Coordinated wall base, trim pieces and transitions can enhance the floor's visual effect. Use thick, decorative installation accessories to create a sense of age or elegance, or, use simple moldings with straight unadorned lines for a more modern feeling.

• Using the same type of flooring throughout several different rooms adds a sense of continuity to a home. Because laminate can be installed in any room , it is the perfect choice for room-to-room and level-to-level coordination.

• Unlike hardwood flooring, which is usually installed across the direction of subfloor joists, wood-look laminate flooring can be laid in any direction you choose.

• To make a narrow room look wider, lay the boards across the width of the room. To make any room look more spacious and open, try laying the boards across the diagonal.

• High-definition embossing enhances the ultra realistic look of DPL laminate, and is a hallmark of quality. It mimics the texture of the real material so well that no one may ever guess you have a laminate floor.

Professional Designers Love Laminate!

In order to achieve a total, cohesive environment, your choice of flooring, or a floor color, should be based on all of the other elements in the space. To make a space look bigger, I would match the color of the flooring to the color of the walls, to create continuity throughout the space.
~Vicente Wolf
           
Flooring can be a powerful statement or a subtle backdrop –either way, when done right, the floor can be the design anchor of a room, complementing the furniture, wall color, window treatments, accessories and architectural detail. Having a dated, worn or scratched floor that hasn't been updated to accentuate new furniture or, worse, choosing a new floor without taking these other elements into consideration can throw off the whole look of a room.
~Chris Madden

I select the floor color based on the overall mood of the project and the natural light of the day. The size of the room never matters to me –it is more about the design, the color and the art of the project. If the floor is gorgeous, it doesn't matter if the room is large or small.
~Penelope Irwin