Laminate in the living room: types, selection, care and beautiful examples

Living room flooring should be durable, attractive, comfortable and easy to maintain. Laminate flooring meets all these characteristics. It is similar to the chic, but not all available parquet flooring due to the high price. A varied range of colors, types that differ in reliability, make laminate flooring a popular material for finishing the floor in the living room.

This type of coating, such as laminate, is preferred by the majority of Russian interior designers due to the fact that for a relatively low price the high quality of the material, its reliability, ease of use and many other positive characteristics are guaranteed.

In a room, laminate can be either a floor covering in a certain style, or it can attract attention with a separate accented spot.

In order for the laminate to look good immediately after installation and subsequently not to wear out, it is better to give your preference to those brands that have proven themselves well in the market space. Poor quality laminate, besides being fragile, also contains toxic substances and can seriously harm the health of family members.

Laminate has its own positive and negative properties. The pluses include:

• high performance;
• good resistance to high temperatures and open fire;
• resistance to scratches and chips, resistance to impact;
• environmental Safety;
• ease of care;
• acceptable price.

However, there are also some downsides.

• Creak. Almost all consumers complain about this. This disadvantage can be easily eliminated by covering a cork backing during installation.
• Intolerance to excess moisture. When water hits the laminate, it will not do much harm to it, and if it gets into the inter-seam gaps, it will negatively affect the properties of the coating. Therefore, when laying the laminate, the space between the seams should be treated with special solutions.
• Blistering caused by improper styling.
• The covering may only be laid on a flat floor.

Usually, in a standard setting, coatings with an outer layer that creates a semblance of natural materials, for example, block parquet, tiles, parquet boards, look good.

When choosing a laminate for an apartment, a number of points must be taken into account.

The choice is determined by the activity of people in a particular room. The living room is where family members gather most, so flooring must be durable and resistant to wear and tear.

Of the 4 available laminate groups, the 32nd class is considered the best option for the living room, which perfectly withstands daily household loads. But here one should not overlook the trademark of the material, because products belonging to the same group, but from different manufacturers, may differ in the intensity of wear resistance.

For almost 20 years, European brands have not made the division of laminate into home and commercial, now it is all subdivided into groups 31, 32, 33, 34. Laminate, belonging to 31 groups, is the most fragile, but it is quite suitable for home.

The floor covering may be moisture resistant, but this is not a major requirement.

Choosing a floor covering should be based on a number of rules.

• For small rooms, it is better to choose a material for finishing with a light shade. So, visually, the room will seem larger. An interior with a dark floor covering will make the room even smaller.
• If you combine a laminate of two shades in a room, then you can correctly divide the living room into zones. This technique is to the liking of many because of its simplicity and the fact that accents are gently placed in the process.
• The combination of laminate with surrounding objects is not considered mandatory. There is enough general combination here: warm or cold shades of the whole room should set the tone for the floor covering.
• When choosing a laminate, it is necessary to pay attention not only to the image, but also to roughly estimate how it will look in a large space. The wrong flooring will ruin the entire design in the room.

Laminate has become widespread among people due to its wide range of colors and textures. The color of the flooring also depends on the style of the living room. So, for the classics, dark colors are characteristic, for ethnic and modern styles - light ones. It is possible to decorate the living room in other stylistic directions.

• Country. The American ranch is characterized by a dark colored laminate. Its design should resemble a plank floor.

• Swiss chalet. In order for the furnishings to define as accurately as possible the spirit of the chalet style, it is necessary to choose a covering in walnut or ash colors.

• Provence. The rustic style is simple and natural. A material with an aged effect is well suited for finishing the floor. For example, whitewashed beveled oak.

• Japanese style. This style assumes floors made of bamboo or sisal, analogs of these materials can be found without any problems in the colors of the laminate.

• Minimalism. The main feature of this style is restraint.Laminate with gray and white shades will look good here.

• High tech. This style can be perfectly combined with laminate in black and gray colors. It is not uncommon to use wenge-colored material.

Laminate flooring will look perfect when laid correctly on the surface. There are three standard layouts: straight, diagonal, herringbone. There are times when the right floor covering completely transforms the look of the room.

It is important to remember that the amount of material required is not the least influenced by the method of installation.

The direct method of installation has become widespread, because it is simple, and anyone can master it. There are two subspecies of this styling method: along and across the line of light. The first subspecies allows you to lay the flooring more beautifully. Laying across the line of light will visually expand the room.

The diagonal installation method is more expensive, but at the same time it is chosen much more often. The diagonal orientation of the boards increases the size of the room and gives it a sense of spaciousness. It is very difficult to lay the coating on the floor with your own hands in a diagonal way, it is better to contact a specialist.

Herringbone flooring is not available to everyone, because not every material can be laid this way. The special laminate that can be used for this method costs much more than usual.

One way to use laminate flooring is to use it for wall design. Usually, experts single out one wall in order to put a bright accent. The most common place for laminate flooring is on the wall behind the TV. This sets the accents in the living room and serves as an excellent base for the television picture.

You can learn how to properly lay laminate flooring in the video below.