This summer: flooring solutions to DIY for

Summer. A season to kick back, relax and spend long days outdoors, soaking up the rays and generally not doing very much. Yet for others, it’s a season to get busy: replacing kitchens, building extensions, fitting new bathrooms, and more. If you’re in the latter camp, and you know your way around a toolkit, chances are you’ll be doing some (or a lot) of that home-improvement work yourself. Job satisfaction and saving money – what’s not to like?

But when it comes to flooring, you could be forgiven for getting a little confused. There are so many flooring solutions, several of which may be suitable for the footfall and location of a given room. Suitable, yes – but are they right? The flooring you choose for, say, a redecorated bedroom will be different from what’s needed for the dining room (or indeed for that new garden room).

For the former, something luxurious and fluffy underfoot: a thick, deep-pile, wool-rich carpet – plain probably, with a rug or rugs to add splashes of colour. For the latter, perhaps something more “statement-y” – a wooden floor, stain- and spill-resistant, will add elegance and sophistication.

For the hallway? Luxury Vinyl Tiles (LVTs), maybe. These also come in tile designs if that's a look you like. The list goes on – and might seem bewildering. Which is why it pays to call in the experts to help you choose what’s right for you – what suits your taste, your needs, and your budget.

M&D Flooring are here to help you make those all-important floor-covering decisions. And once you’ve decided, we’ll fit your floors professionally: liaising with you and/or your builders to work around whatever else is going on – and keeping disruption to your projects, and stress to you, to an absolute minimum. One less headache for you on the rocky road to home improvements!

Thinking clearly

One of the new rooms on your home-improvement list might be a conservatory – and it’s generally a sound idea: thanks to new materials such as self-cleaning glass and tighter regulations around insulation, today’s conservatories are usable year-round: warm in winter, cool (or cool-ish) in summer and, often as not, the nicest room in the house.

The flooring you select should add lasting comfort and style. Practicality, too – often the final frontier between your house and garden, conservatories endure more than their share of muddy feet! Wooden floors are generally a bad idea for a conservatory. Hour after hour of bright sunshine can cause a wooden floor to fade and warp. With caveats, engineered wood might be worth a look, though generally we wouldn’t advise it.

A stone-tiled floor will last a lifetime, but stone tiles are by nature a bit chilly underfoot. While we don't supply and fit real tiles or ceramic tiles, we are able to either remove or cover them over for you with an alternative flooring of your choice.

Laminate flooring is definitely worth considering. Today’s laminates bear much closer scrutiny than previous incarnations. Wood-effect laminate flooring is much more convincing than used to be the case; and the new tile and stone-effect finishes are also pleasing to the eye.

Warm underfoot, carpet is also a great sound and heat insulator. Durability is key here, however; a conservatory carpet needs to be able to withstand heavy footfall, to be stain and spill-resistant, and easy to clean. An anti-UV treatment will help protect the carpet against sun damage. These are just some of your options – but there are lots more!

Now at M&D: made-to-measure blinds

What you put on the floor of your new conservatory is crucial. But arguably what you put in your (many) new windows – for privacy, and to repel too much summer sunshine and retain winter warmth – is just as important. M&D now offer made-to-measure blinds in a range of colours, designs, and styles, to complement your new garden room – and your new flooring.

Vertical blinds are perfect for conservatories, letting in just the right amount of light and easy to keep clean. Whatever your preference – Roman, roller or Venetian – we can supply and install the right blinds for your new room.

Calling all schools and colleges!

You’ll be on holiday this summer – but we’re not. With your temple of academe standing temporarily empty, summer would be the perfect time to re-lay those worn corridor and classroom floors. During term-time schools and colleges enjoy (or endure) a constant heavy footfall – of students and staff. Spillages are common. Maintaining hygiene standards is important. Looks may not be vital, but they matter.

Durability is your watchword – that, and ease of maintenance. In which case, commercial vinyl flooring could be the perfect solution, certainly for corridors and hallways, while colour-complementary hard-wearing carpet tiles might be ideal for study areas.

Other areas of the school might need more specialist flooring. Tiles for the swimming-pool surround, for example. Something non-slip (as well as durable) for the sports hall. Perhaps a polished wood (or wood-effect) floor for the assembly hall. Dent-resistant too, to withstand all those pointy chair legs (not to mention school discos!) But the time to plan this is now – with the work to be carried out during the long vacation, while the place is closed.

Whatever you’re considering this summer – home improvement projects, a new conservatory, new floors in your school or college – let us help you choose the floors (and blinds) that suit you best and make use of our Home (or School) Select service. Get in touch and we’ll make an appointment to visit on a day and time to suit you, and bring a range of samples for you to evaluate.