Great Flooring for a Thrifty Family Home

When I had my kids I never really gave a great deal of thought to flooring. We had pretty, tufty, light beige carpets throughout our home. I simply thought how lovely and soft they would be for my baby to crawl on and for me to lay her down on.

Oh, I knew nothing – I really had no clue!

A few weeks into having my baby and after we had nappy spills on the floor (oh yes) I rued the day that I thought beige carpets were a good idea. Some stains just don’t really come out or some smells!

Later, smears of Sudocream and globs of sticky, firey red Calpol also hit those beige carpets and they just looked …terrible. I concluded pretty swiftly that beige carpets were NOT family friendly. Nope. Not one bit.

Once the fog of parenting cleared I looked around and went ‘yuck.’ Our house did not look so good and our carpets needed to go. We decided on laminate flooring to replace it for a variety of reasons. Laminate has a host of excellent qualities that make it perfect not only for a young families budget but also their lifestyle.

The benefits of laminate flooring

• It is less expensive than engineered wood flooring and often less expensive than carpet too.
• Laminate comes in so many styles these days you can absolutely get the look you want to fit into your home.
• It is so easy to clean and doesn’t scratch or wear in the way wood can.
• Laminate does not easily stain like carpets so can cope with the thrills and spills of kids.
• Since laminate is made from pressed wood it is durable and robust and it copes well with moisture and with dents. This is essential if your kids ( like mine did) like to throw their drinks! It also means those nappy accidents are far easier to deal with.
• Laminate doesn’t fade either as wood can so can last you for a very long time – and still look great.
• Because laminate is made of wood it can be recycled which makes it better for the environment too.

So yes laminate is perfect for thrifty family life and just right for those of us with kids. I found as my kids grew the mess never abated and the spills of the baby and toddler years were replaced with muddy football boots and spilt slime creations. Sigh.

Fittting laminate flooring

If you are a bit handy then fitting your own laminate is entirely do-able saving on costs even further. If you feel a bit daunted by this do take a look at this video on How to fit laminate on stairs There’s also lots of information to be found in this How to lay laminate flooring blog

 

So yes, I do believe laminate flooring is a great option for a thrifty family home, engineered wood flooring is also a great option- both in a practical sense, as a long term flooring solution and in terms of value for money.