Choosing Flooring for a Small Space

When it comes to flooring, we often have people coming into our showroom looking for something suitable for a small space in their home – usually a bathroom, hallway, cupboard or kitchen. You may have already tried to use light colours on the walls, maximised the lighting, used light curtains or blinds to maximise the wall space and de-cluttered.

Flooring is often overlooked, but if you choose wisely the right type of floor can make a huge difference to how your room looks even when you’ve already tried the well-known space enhancing tricks.

Not only can flooring create the appearance of more space it can also freshen up or change the look of a room entirely.

Here are some of our tips for choosing flooring that will enhance space available in any room:

If you are looking for a solid or engineered wood floor, select wider planks rather than strips (narrower than 3 inches). The fewer wood joins that are visible, the less busy and cleaner your floor will look, helping to create the illusion of space. We will always advise on the best way to lay your planks, for both functionality and appearance.

If you lay tiles, wooden, vinyl or laminate flooring diagonally, it can fool the eye into seeing the flooring pattern in a more visually interesting way, but this look isn’t for everyone. We will happily lay some tiles or planks down to let you get an idea of the finished result, so just ask our fitter before they start to lay the floor. Of course with a herringbone floor, this has to be laid in a very uniform manner.

Don’t be too afraid too chose a dark wood floor for your home. Many of our customers believe that a dark floor can make the space seem smaller, but this isn’t always the case. If you have the right colour on your walls and soft furnishings and furniture that are lighter the darker wood species such as blacknut, walnut, cherry and smoked oak don’t always make the space seem restricted. In fact, a dark floor with lighter, neutral colours and soft furnishings can be a striking contrast.

If you are having luxury vinyl tiles installed in your home, choose larger tiles to increase the appearance of the square footage. Choose tiles larger than 12” in size if possible. As well as being stunning in design, vinyl tiles are durable, comfortable underfoot and warm. They also have fantastic scratch proof and flip proof qualities and are waterproof so can be used in bathrooms and kitchens.

Another space-enhancing trick is to join adjacent rooms with the same flooring. This will give the illusion of having more space especially in the downstairs of your home or in an apartment. If you do want to change the flooring material – such as to have a carpet in a bedroom, try and keep the colours the same.

If space is a concern in your home, there are a few other things you can do to give the impression of space. The first is to maximise the light coming into your home by ensuring that window coverings don’t cut off the light when they are open. When you hang curtains, ensure that the entire windowpane is clear when they are open.

Another way to maximise light is to place mirrors to reflect the light around the home and to buy glass rather than opaque furniture, and use glass or mirrored picture frames.

Keep your walls and furnishings neutral with a pop of colour here and there, and don’t be tempted to clutter your home with ornaments and too many pictures.

Talk to us in the showroom and we can give you some advice on how to make your home look bigger, and offer on advice on the right type of flooring for your home.

Visit our advice centre for more information on the different types of flooring available.