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Carpeting your floor

From Axminster carpet in the 1800s through to the shag pile of the 60s and the beach house feel of today's sisal-style floor coverings, carpet has long been a popular flooring choice for Australian homes. It's stylish, durable, soft, quiet underfoot and good for insulation.

Whether you're carpeting a new room or replacing some worn or daggy carpet you've had way too long, it's probably time to get an update on what's out there. Buying the wrong carpet can be an expensive mistake, so roll up and read on as we lay on piles of useful information.

Material matters

No one fibre is best for everyone – the best carpet choice for you depends on where it will be, who'll be using it, how much traffic it will get, and the size of your budget.

Wool carpet

Just like your favourite jumper, wool carpet is warm, luxurious and durable. It's also generally more expensive than other fibres. Wool is good for living areas where appearance is important. It's naturally stain resistant in that it resists liquid-based spills and releases dirt easily, but you'll want to clean up spills quickly. Cheaper wool carpets are likely to pill.

Nylon carpet

Nylon is a tough and durable man-made fibre. It's very popular for carpets – it's cheaper than wool and some even look as good but with added stain resistance. Nylon carpet will hold its colour against cleaning and sunlight, and it's ideal for use in high-traffic areas for families with children or pets.

Polypropylene carpet

Polypropylene is a synthetic fibre, popular because it's inexpensive, water resistant and durable. It's often used for rental properties, garages or playrooms. However it looks and feels cheap – because it is.

Blends

Wool and nylon blend carpet can give you the benefits of both, at a lower cost than pure wool carpet.

The luxurious Axminster and Wilton carpets use an 80/20 wool/nylon blend, and offer the same quality and durability as pure wool. 50/50 wool/nylon can be difficult to clean, as stain-resistance can't be added to the nylon when it's blended. These blends also tend to use poorer-quality wool yarn that will pill.

Hard Flooring | Timber & Tiles

Is it time for a flooring facelift? One of the great renovation joys is pulling up old carpet to reveal pristine kauri pine floorboards, ripe for revival. And if those old boards are a little worse for wear or you're starting a floor from scratch, new (or recycled) hard flooring looks great and is very practical – for busy, messy households cluttered with kids and pets and luxury homes alike.

Stealing the floor show

People love hard floors because they are fairly low maintenance, easy to clean, and they wear well. It's also the flooring of choice for people with allergies as hard floors won't harbour dust mites the way carpet can. But you still need to take care of timber and tiles to make sure they last you a long time. You also want to choose right for your budget, but luckily there's a wide range of options for all hard floor lovers.

Timber flooring

Timber flooring has very wide appeal and comes in a variety of looks and styles. You can choose between structural solid plank floorboards that slot together, parquetry designs, and floating floors that can be overlaid on pre-existing solid floors.

Timber flooring is very durable, comfortable, low-allergenic and easy to care for. But it is not entirely 'lay and forget'. You need to strip and sand high traffic areas every three to four years – not just to keep it looking good, but also to maintain its moisture resistance to prevent warping and other problems.

Structural timber floors

These are the traditional type of timber boards laid on bearers or joists. Boards of structural flooring typically come in 100 and 150mm widths and are generally available in various click-together tongue and groove designs.

Structural floors should really be installed by a professional, but it can be a time-consuming process. Timber boards need to acclimatise to their environment, so you may need to leave them for up to two weeks to settle in before laying them.

Floating timber floors

Unlike structural timber floors, floating floors aren't attached to a subfloor system — they're laid over the existing solid floor, such as tiles, concrete, timber floorboards, plywood, particle board or cork.

They're usually installed on underlay, which provides good noise insulation for use in multi-storey apartment buildings and homes.

Because floating floors aren't nailed down like conventional floorboards, any movement in the boards is spread across the entire floor, which makes gaps less likely to appear.

Timber floating floors consist of tongue-and-groove boards made from a thin layer of softwood or hardwood bonded to a high-density fibreboard substrate. They're often pre-coated to enhance their wearability (polyurethane is common), but it's possible to coat after installation. They can also be sanded back and refurbished if necessary.

Laminated 'faux' timber finishes are widely available and are commonly referred to as laminate flooring. If you go for this option, make sure you're happy with how closely (or otherwise) it resembles the real thing.

Tiles

There's a vast array of ceramic, natural and man-made stone tiles in a huge range of designs and styles.

Porcelain tiles

Porcelain tiles are a type of ceramic and are good for indoor and outdoor flooring – they're more hard-wearing and easier to maintain than natural stone.

They come in two types: glazed or vitrified (also known as full-bodied). Vitrified tiles are the same colour all the way through, so unlike glazed tiles, if they're chipped or in very heavy wear situations, they'll retain their original colour.

Glazed tiles are around $20/m2 to $100/m2. Vitrified porcelain tiles come in a 'natural' (from around $50/m2) or polished finish (from around $90/m2).

Natural stone tiles

Natural stone like travertine, shellstone, limestone and marble are also popular materials for floor tiles. They will probably need to be re-sealed regularly to protect them from water and wear, because natural stone tends to be porous.

Prices start from around $80/m2. Depending on your particular situation, installation of tiles will generally add around another $50/m2 to the cost.