kitchen flooring Archives - Page 3 of 4

Orange County Flooring Contractor Shares 3 Ways Hard Floors are Better

By Inspired Remodels / Home Improvement / Comments Off

Flooring for your home represents a significant financial outlay. Anytime you spend that much money, you want to know you are getting the best product for your home and health. So what floors are the best? Hard flooring in any form is the healthiest choice. Inspired Remodels, a popular Orange County flooring contractor shares why hard floors make the healthiest homes.

A cat and carpet together are not a good idea

Reason 1 – Hard Flooring Reduces Allergens

Hard floors make healthier floors because they reduce the number of allergens in your home. Place carpets and rugs on your floors and install allergen magnets.

Textile flooring collects dust, pollen, molds, dust, dust mites, and pet allergens. Then, each time a person walks on the carpet or rug, their feet send a cloud of allergens up into the air. Even if you run HEPA air cleaners, you aren’t going to collect all the allergens.

That allergen cloud wafts up to sensitive noses and soon there’s sneezing, wheezing, coughing, and watery eyes. Textile flooring might be a good look for the floor, but it’s not a good look for your health.

And these days, everybody is concerned about health.

Wood, stone, and tile flooring refuse to collect allergens. They just won’t do it. That’s because they are easy to clean. This leads us to reason number 2.

Hard floors and cats are a better idea

Reason 2 – Hard Flooring is Easy to Keep Clean

Hard floors provide no place for dirt or allergens to hide. Unlike textile flooring with fibers, nooks, and crannies, hard flooring offers a smooth surface.

Whether you vacuum or damp mop, you’ll remove the dirt. Where vacuuming carpets sends dust flying, vacuuming hard floors with a horsehair brush dislodges dust without making it airborne.

Carpeting represents multiple layers of textiles. Not only does the carpet collect dirt, but dirt falls between the fibers to the padding underneath. Face it, you are never going to clean that padding. You can pay someone to clean your carpet, but it won’t really be clean. And, the padding stays dirty.

Clean a wood, tile, or stone floor and it is really clean. And it will stay clean longer provided you remove your shoes before coming inside.

Reason 3 – Hard Flooring Improves Planet Health

For the most part, textile flooring comes from synthetic materials. These materials are carbon-based. Oil and minerals are extracted, refined, processed, and spun to create fibers. It consumes vasts amounts of energy and isn’t renewable.

Compare that with bamboo flooring. Bamboo flooring provides the most eco-friendly option in hard flooring. Any Orange County flooring contractor in the know knows that bamboo beats other hardwoods when it comes to hardness. Bamboo harvested from managed farms renews in 5 to 7 years. You can’t say that for an oak tree.

Ceramic tile is also eco-friendly. Yes, it is mined but unlike carpet, ceramic lasts up to 50 years. So you enjoy many years of use when compared to carpeting or other textile floorings that must be continually replaced.

Orange County Flooring Contractor Knows Flooring

Talk to Inspired Remodels about your flooring needs. Inspired Remodels is the Orange County flooring contractor that matches your lifestyle and budget to the best flooring for your home.

Stop by the showroom, call (949) 716-1938, or Contact Us online.

From flooring to fixtures and finishes, Inspired Remodels is Orange County’s premier home remodeling company.

Psst – need a little inspiration? Check out the portfolio of Orange County flooring projects.

Flooring Contractor Recommends Hard Surface Floors for Orange County Homes

By Inspired Remodels / Home Improvement / Comments Off

Wood, wood look tiles, marble, and porcelain tiles dominate remodeling trends for at least 10 years now. And that’s for good reason. Some designers and decorators are starting to introduce carpeting again. But Inspired Remodels, the expert flooring contractor in Orange County still recommends hard surface floors. There are many reasons to love hard floors. Here are three:

Hard Flooring Improves Air Quality

Californians concern themselves with air pollution. But most of the focus is on the outside air. Breather cleaner indoor air when you have hard surface floors.

Carpeting provides a safe harbor for dust, dust mites, pet allergens, mold spores, and grains of pollen. These common household allergens are hard to get out of rugs and carpets. Carpet cleaning companies promise to “clean” carpets, but no company actually removes all soil and allergens to the depth of the backing. Unfortunately, too many carpet cleaning methods make surfaces dirtier. Improper extraction methods leave behind water and cleaning solutions and this promotes the growth of mold and increases dust mite populations. Ewww!

On the other hand, clean a hard surface floor and it is clean. Vacuum, damp mop, and Swiffer to your heart’s content. These actions remove dirt, debris, and allergens from your floors. Removing dust and allergens from the floor improves indoor air quality because once they are gone, you can’t breathe them.

Vacuum wood or tile floors with a HEPA filtered vacuum and clean the air even more.

Hard Flooring is Easy to Maintain

Hard floors like wood, tile, polished cement or stone are relatively easy to maintain. Solid flooring resists stains. Even when you track dirt and debris inside, it’s easy to remove.

Spill red wine on the tile floor in the kitchen and just wipe it up. There’s no crying over spilled milk, splashed cereal, or dropped peanut butter sandwiches. Just clean it up with a damp rag or paper towel. Grout may need sealing, but your tile floors will continue to be worry-free.

When you have carpet or rugs on the floor, every party and every dinner is a disaster waiting to happen. Your guests feel terrible for staining the floors and you feel bad too. Any flooring contractor will tell you the way to avoid the drama is to avoid the carpet.

Talk to the Best Flooring Contractor About the Best Floors For You

Talk to the flooring experts at Inspired Remodels about your flooring project.

Based on your lifestyle, budget, design preferences, and other considerations you’ll receive a custom recommendation. Every lifestyle is different, every flooring install should reflect these differences.

Contact Inspired Remodels, the flooring contractor that knows flooring for Orange County homes.

Kitchen Renovation Company Explains Differences in Kitchen Flooring

By Inspired Remodels / Kitchen Remodel / Comments Off

Wood, tile, and other hard surfaces have made a comeback with a vengeance. And hard surfaces are great for kitchen flooring. When it comes to kitchen flooring, you want surfaces that stand up to moisture and are not easily scratched or dinged. If you are worried about damaging wood, then consider wood-look tile. It comes in many colors and sizes. Laminate flooring and luxury flooring are also popular in the kitchen. But which one is right for you? Inspired Remodels, an Orange County kitchen renovation company, explains the differences.

Hardwood

This flooring never goes out of style. It adds warmth and beauty. It lasts for years and can be sanded and refinished.

Hardwood flooring stands up to spills if they are wiped up right away. However, because it is so hard, it can be uncomfortable to stand on for hours at a time.

Cooks that spend considerable time standing in the kitchen will want to add padded mats for lower back and leg comfort. It is generally the most expensive kitchen flooring but it is also the longest lasting.

Tile

Ceramic or porcelain tiles are great for the kitchen. While porcelain is less impervious to water by definition, both can stand up to common kitchen spills. Since kitchen floors take a lot of abuse, look for tiles where the color permeates the tile. Otherwise, one dropped knife can mar the look. If you want the look of wood but want the durability of tile, look for wood-look tile. Tile requires the use of grout. To keep floors looking fresh, keep grout sealed.

Tile can easily last for up to 20 years, so it wins in the long-lasting category. It is generally less expensive than hardwood. Like hardwood, it is tough on the back and legs if you stand for long periods of time. Dedicated cooks will want to use padded mats for comfort.

Laminate Wood

Pergo is probably the most recognizable laminate brand. Their products made laminate flooring popular. Laminate flooring is also called wood composite flooring. That’s because it’s 99% wood byproducts. The name laminate also refers to it’s construction. Imagine layers of rigid, high-density fiber boards laminated together to make planks. The finished appearance comes from a photographic image that sits under the resin layer. It looks like stone or wood.

Install laminate over an existing floor without glue or nails. It usually floats. Just snap or click over an existing floor. You can glue to a subfloor if desired. Laminate wood can be applied over padding for comfort. It is an affordable alternative to hardwood.

Luxury Vinyl

Luxury vinyl isn’t the rolled flooring you remember from the 70’s and 80’s. This new stuff is awesome. It’s available in planks or tiles and is constructed of many layers of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and then coated with urethane.

Luxury vinyl planks can look like real hardwood flooring. Look for smooth or textured. It can also mimic other materials such as stone or tile. Install by gluing or floating. Luxury vinyl is installed over padding for comfort.

Luxury vinyl tiles are available in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. So, they mimic wood, stone, and concrete. In addition to gluing and floating, you can peel and stick these tiles.

Ask the Kitchen Renovation Company that Knows Flooring

Still not sure what flooring is right for your kitchen renovation project? Ask the kitchen renovation company that knows flooring. Ask Inspired Remodels.

Joe Mueller will help you pick and install the kitchen flooring that fits your style and budget. Call (949) 716-1938 and schedule an appointment today to discuss your options or Contact us online with your questions.