The first pro-tip I can give you is not to change your floors to sell your house. Unless you are renovating the entire house to gain more equity, leave them alone. Sell it as-is. You will not get back what you put in if you’re changing your floors to sell the house.
If you are planning to stay in your house a while and want to change the floors keeping resale in mind – here are some pro tips.
Let’s start with the basics. If we’re designing a new home, we’re going to stick with a standard formula. You can use the same formula when updating your floors.
Basic Flooring Guideline:
Main house-living areas, formal dining, hallways, and family rooms should all be one floor. You can use the same wood, tile, or luxury vinyl plank (LVP).
Kitchen: Same flooring as main house or tile that blends with main floor depending on homeowner wants.
Bathrooms: All same tile. LVP can be used but note, on rare occasion, LVP floors might be subject to water damage. LVP functions differently depending on material. For example, cork backed LVP is not as functional.
Bedrooms: Use either the flooring chosen for the main part of the house or a very low-pile carpet. Not everyone likes hard surfaces in their bedroom. And the other half don’t like carpet. You can’t go wrong here.
A few Pro Design Tips:
Consistency is Key
Ideally, you don’t want to be able to stand in one place and see more than 2 different flooring types. Sometimes it can’t be helped. For example, a bathroom might have a door to a carpeted bedroom. It might also have another door out to a hallway with wood floors. This setup would be fine. In a main area, we want to primarily see one main flooring type
All Flooring Materials in the House Should Coordinate
All material types in the house should be the same or similar color family. For example, all wood, carpet and LVP should be the same throughout the house. If you have tile in your kitchen, you should use the same tile or a coordinating tile in the bathrooms. Ideally, no more than two tile styles should be used throughout the house. An exception to this tile rule would be a fun tile on a powder bath floor. This is a tile that would make a statement.
Buyers Expect More from Luxury Properties
For luxury houses – houses valued at $850,000+, wood floors should be real, nail-down hardwood or large format tile. In the past ten years, we have seen luxury vinyl used in million-dollar homes. My personal opinion is that those times have passed. Luxury Vinyl is better than it used to be but can lessen the desirability when used in a $million home.
Low-Pile Carpet Is Fine for Bedrooms and Media Rooms
If choosing carpet in bedrooms and theater rooms – this carpet should be a low pile or Berber style carpet. Shag and plush carpets are not preferable to many buyers.
Flooring Should Make Sense and Be Functional to the Space
The goal when choosing flooring is to make sure it makes sense. People can make sense of a transition from wood to tile in the kitchen because it’s functional. They can make sense of tile in a bathroom. People can make sense of a fun different tile in one guest bathroom or kid’s bath because it adds personality.
It’s harder to make sense of is three different floors as soon as you walk into the house. When floors don’t flow through a house well, it gives a sense of chaos.
Keep it simple, follow these guidelines and you’ll get great results!