Floors in the apartment: design ideas, types and recommendations

When creating an apartment design project, you should, of course, not forget about the floors. If they are decorated with tasteless taste, creating a spectacular interior in the house, of course, will not work. There are many beautiful materials for flooring on the market today. This is linoleum, and laminate, and parquet. You can also trim floors in the apartment using porcelain stoneware, carpet, tile, etc.

Basic rules for registration

It's believed that:

1. To decorate the floor in a city apartment, it is worth using rather dark materials. However, the rule is not mandatory. It is possible to finish the floors in the apartment with the help of light linoleum, laminate or carpet. But pay attention to cleaning such a coating in the future, of course, will have more.

2. Glossy coatings are better suited for large rooms. Such a finish is able to make the room visually smaller.

3. Choosing for floors should be sufficiently durable, wear-resistant and environmentally friendly materials. Buying too cheap finishes from an unknown manufacturer, since it will be used in a residential area, of course, is not recommended.

Well, of course, you should choose a floor covering in such a way that it harmoniously fits into the interior design of the house.

Floors in the apartment: design ideas

Previously, different materials were often used to decorate the floors of residential and household areas in apartments. At the same time, beautiful materials of a pleasant color were chosen for the hall, bedroom, study and nursery, and less expensive, but more practical, were used for corridors, kitchens and bathrooms. Today, with the appearance on the market of very high-quality modern floor coverings, the floors in apartments are most often finished using materials of the same type.

With this approach to business, a very good idea, for example, will be the design of floors in all rooms with a coating of not only one type, but also the same color. This decoration option is just perfect, for example, for apartments with an interior in the style of minimalism, modern or classic.

Also, a good solution would be to finish the floors in rooms for various purposes in the house with the same material, but of a different design. In this case, the features of decoration will depend on the style of decoration of the rooms, as well as the imagination of the owners of the apartment. The only thing - in this case, in different rooms the floors still have to be finished with material in harmonious shades. Otherwise, the whole apartment as a whole will look, most likely, tasteless and clumsy.

Another good design idea may be to use materials of different colors within the same room. Flexible linoleum, carpet or laminate flooring in the apartment can be laid in stripes, alternating, for example, light and dark. Also look good on the floor coverings in the form of squares made of finishing materials of different colors, staggered.

Finishing coatings collected from several varieties of materials within the same room can also look very impressive. For example, the floors in the apartment can be completely covered with laminate, while linoleum can be simulated with carpet paths. Massive plank and parquet with the right approach are very well combined with porcelain stoneware. Carpeting, in most cases, looks great in combination with almost all types of finishing materials available on the market today.

Types of floors

Unfortunately, in most cases, it is possible to start embodying various kinds of design ideas at once, unfortunately, only in new homes. In the apartments of old buildings, before the start of registration, it is often necessary to change the actual creaking, rotten or dry floors themselves.

A similar operation can be performed using different technologies. The choice of a specific technique in this case depends primarily on what type of floors in the apartment was originally used.

Most often, in such residential premises floors are arranged:

• wooden;

• concrete.

In this case, the first type of coating in apartments of high-rise buildings is used more often, and the second - less often.

Repair of wooden floors

The technology for replacing this type of coating is usually as follows:

• trim is removed;

• old boards are removed;

• a vapor insulator is placed between the lags;

• insulation is installed - mineral wool or expanded polystyrene;

• a hydroinsulator is laid;

• new boards are stuffed;

• new finishing material is being laid.

Sometimes, when repairing such a floor, it is also necessary to change rotted logs. Also, in some cases, when replacing the coating, insulation is not used. Mandatory use of expanded polystyrene, mineral wool or expanded clay is usually considered only when arranging floors in the apartment on the ground floor.

Recommendations for the assembly of wooden floors

To equip such a coating, only the highest quality and strongest lumber should be taken. Indeed, during the operation of the floors are usually subjected to much more severe loads than most other building envelopes.

Boards for arranging such a coating, according to the standards, may be used with a thickness of at least 20 mm. At the same time, the thinner such lumber is, the more often you will have to install logs when assembling floors.

Under the logs themselves, a beam is usually taken with a thickness of 150x80 mm or 180x100 mm.

Concrete screed

Sometimes residents of apartment buildings when replacing the old floor do not use logs and boards, but cement mortar. In this case, it is possible to equip a more durable and reliable coating. It is a concrete floor, a continuous smooth slab that will never bend and begin to creak.

The floor screed in the apartment is poured according to the following technology:

• very dense polystyrene foam is laid on the floor slab;

• mounted waterproofing;

• reinforcing mesh is installed;

• with the help of a level and a cord, beacons are installed;

• concrete screed is poured;

• mounted finish coating.

Also, cement mortar is often used in urban apartments for the installation of underfloor heating. In this case, the coating cake is assembled using a similar technology. However, the screed at the same time is poured onto the cables themselves or the pipes of the warm floor.

Filling the floor in the apartment: requirements

If only high-quality materials are used in the assembly of the wooden coating, then cement of exceptionally high grades is supposed to be taken for concrete pouring. Usually, M150 is used to equip such a floor. Sand for pouring screeds should be used large and necessarily sifted. The concrete mix for the floor is most often mixed in a ratio of 1: 3. Pour the solution onto the floor slab preferably in one go.

Level the solution during the installation of such floors using a special tool - the rule. It should be selected in such a way that its length exceeds the distance between the installed beacons. Reinforcement must be used when pouring concrete floors. Otherwise, the screed later in the apartment will certainly begin to crack and crumble.

The thickness of the concrete layer itself on the floor should not be less than 3 cm. But it is still better to fill the screed with a thickness of about 5 cm.

Special mixes

Concrete screed is often used in urban apartments, not only for the arrangement of the floors themselves, but also for their leveling. Recently, however, special bulk mixtures are still more often used for this purpose. Such self-leveling compounds in comparison with concrete have a number of undeniable advantages. For example, they solidify much faster than cement mortars. You can walk on floors flooded with their use after 2-5 hours. Fine finish on them is allowed to be laid in a day.

The only such floor covering in the apartment, unlike concrete, can not be poured with too thick a layer. The leveling technology using such materials looks as follows:

• the surface is pre-cleaned and primed in two layers;

• a solution is prepared and poured onto the floor with simultaneous leveling.

Styling recommendations

It is necessary to start pouring the mixture from the farthest wall towards the door. Each new strip during the performance of work should slightly float on the previous one. Work should be done fast enough so that the previous portion of the mixture does not have time to harden before laying the next.