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It is rare these days that you enter a home and not encounter at least one entrance or welcome mat for visitors to wipe their feet on. Shops, offices and other commercial properties also have them, and they come in particularly handy in wet weather.
The main reason why entrance mats are so essential in homes and businesses is because they help to keep the floor clean. Visitors are able to wipe their shoes as they enter, meaning they won’t traipse dirt, mud and moisture all over your nice new floors.
Another benefit of welcome mats, one that you might not have considered, is that they can also protect the floor from scratches and scuffs. These are caused when outside materials like stones, grit and other residue are brought inside on a person’s shoes, leaving marks and indentations on the floor.
Amtico floors are generally very easy to clean, but they still require a little care and attention to keep them looking their best. So, if you want to save yourself a great deal of time and effort when cleaning and maintaining your Amtico floors, think of the idiom ‘prevention is better than cure’ and get yourself an entrance mat or two.
Metal Amtico flooring can be a very exciting material to work with, and to have in your home. None of your neighbours or friends are likely to have such a unique feature in their homes, meaning your house could end up being the talk of the town!
More ideas for using Amtico metal-effect flooring
We have already looked at a few ideas for making the best use of Amtico metal flooring, but here are a couple of other points to bear in mind.
• Choose reflective surfaces. This will make the room look brighter, enhancing the natural light and really making it sparkle. In fact, you can even find Amtico metal flooring which has the lightest dusting of sparkle built in!
• Keep the rest of the décor simple, especially if you choose a rather exciting metal-effect pattern. You are aiming for a sleek, sophisticated and above all, understated look with metal flooring, so try to avoid overwhelming the room with too much detail, colour and fuss.
Follow the tips in both parts of this guide, and you should be able to use metal Amtico flooring to create a picture-perfect design for your living room. Good luck!
One of the most exciting things about Amtico flooring is the virtually limitless range of different effects it can create. Even though it is made of vinyl, the surface of Amtico flooring can be made to look like anything from stone and tile to wood and even more unusual effects such as metal.
Metal effect Amtico flooring can be a stunning and highly unique addition to your living room, but only if you know how to use it. You don’t need a professional interior designer to create the right look with Amtico metal flooring (although it never hurts to consult an expert!), but you may need a few ideas to get you started.
• Create zones. Some people find the look of metal-effect flooring to be too overwhelming if used across a whole room, so they instead use the material to create unique zoning areas. These can add interest to a room, giving it a real focal point as well as something for your guests to comment on!
• Opt for subtle shades such as Urban Metal Bronze, Metal Gold Leaf or Metal Fuse. This keeps the room looking like it is part of a contemporary home rather than a futuristic industrial or commercial space.
More tips on successfully designing a room using metal Amtico flooring can be found in part 2 of this guide.
Wood flooring has its advantages, and many people choose to have it in their homes. It has great aesthetic appeal and works well in a number of different design styles and décor plans.
However, natural hardwood flooring also has its downsides. The first of these is how expensive it is as a material, followed closely by how easily it can become damaged if it is not properly maintained.
Wood flooring can swell and warp out of shape if exposed to too much moisture, as well as being easily scratched and marked by furniture legs and shoes. This can often mean that the floor has to be replaced or re-sanded, which incurs yet more expense.
Hardwood floors also present problems with cleaning. Spills can sink into the wood if you aren’t careful, and can sometimes stain it permanently, whereas some substances (i.e. paint) prove incredibly difficult to remove.
So what is the solution? Is there a way you can still enjoy the natural beauty of wood flooring, but in a much more practical and affordable package?
The answer you’re looking for is Amtico flooring, a vinyl floor covering which comes in a range of strikingly realistic effects i.e. wood, stone etc. Easy to install and easy to clean, and surprisingly affordable.
Of all the looks you can create in your home with Amtico flooring, those produced with Amtico dark slates flooring are the most sophisticated, sleek and high-end. Just with the simple use of this exotic-looking flooring material, you can create a completely unique style in your kitchen, bathroom or any other room in the house.
Amtico dark slate effect floors possess all of the character of the real thing, but without any of the practical problems. You don’t have to worry about scratches, chips or cracks with vinyl flooring as you would with real slate, and cleaning and maintenance is incredibly easy.
If you’re new to Amtico vinyl flooring, you are likely to be quite surprised at the wide range of patterns that can be achieved on the surface of the material. Slate-effect Amtico floors are intense and rich in their dark colour, allowing you to create an ultra-slick architectural finish in any room of your home.
By the time you’ve finished fitting your Amtico slate-effect floors (which hardly takes any time at all), your home will look like it came straight off the glossy pages of a luxury interiors magazine.
Amtico flooring comes in a wide range of different styles, textures and effects, and one of the most popular of these is stone. Whether its travertine, limestone, sandstone or marble, the people who buy stone-effect Amtico tiles love the way they can get the authentic look of the material without the expense and hassle of buying the real thing.
There are ways, however, that you can make your stone-effect Amtico flooring look even more authentic. This is where Amtico accessories such as EasyGrout come in, helping to make your tiling look more natural, more unique and more authentic. Most importantly, it helps to produce a genuine tiled effect on vinyl.
EasyGrout is ready-mixed and of a manageable consistency, meaning that it easy to apply even if you aren’t experienced in tiling and grouting. In order to complement all of Amtico’s various stone-effect ranges (including Spacia), this installation accessory comes in three natural, earthy tones – putty, chalk and natural.
As a final bonus to homeowners, EasyGrout is both anti-mould and resistant to water. This means that it is able to retain its exceptional finish in every room of the house.
When installing any kind of new flooring in your home, you are likely to hear a lot about the sub-floor and how it needs to be in good condition before the installation can take place. The problem is, most people don’t know too much about the sub-floors in their house, unless they happen to be flooring experts.
So, what is a sub-floor?
To put it simply, a sub-floor is the layer of flooring below your finished floor. As well as providing a smooth and stable surface on which to lay your new flooring on, the sub-floor also helps with moisture control, sound control and insulation, and has a number of other benefits.
The sub-floor solution
If you’re having trouble with your sub-floor (either you don’t have one or it is in a poor condition) and you don’t want the expense and hassle or hiring in a professional, we may have found a solution for you.
The Forbo QuickFit Rapid Subfloor System
This is an instant sub-floor system which is easy to fit (thanks to its self-adhering Forbo foam underlay) and even easier to remove. You can install it yourself in a matter of minutes, and it provides you with the perfect smooth surface for laying your Amtico flooring.
Amtico flooring is specially designed to be long-lasting and durable, as well as easy to clean and maintain. However, you should still take steps to protect it from damage and keep it looking as good as new for longer.
The following are a few of the top ways you can keep your Amtico floors safe, spotless and sparkling:
• Implement a ‘no shoes in the house’ policy for the family and for guests, especially for muddy trainers or high heels which can damage the floor
• Do a quick clean-up of the floor every now and again. If you stay on top of the floor cleaning, you can keep it looking stunning and get rid of anything that may damage the floor before it has a chance
• Put protective pads on furniture legs. This stops them scraping the floor when you move furniture around (it’s quieter too!)
• Get a door mat for essential feet-wiping. This will save you from having to clean the floor all the time.
Keep all of these tips in mind, especially in high-traffic areas of the floor on which family members walk on fairly often.
There are some areas of the home that are used more than others, such as hallways, landings and rooms which lead on to other, commonly used rooms. These are known as ‘high-traffic’ areas, because we walk on them a lot every day.
In areas which are subject to a lot of foot traffic, the flooring you choose needs to be very durable. It must be as resistant as possible to scuffing, scratching and scraping, and it must also be very easy to clean. This is especially important if you have children and/or pets, as well as if the hallway leads on to an external door (as mud, dirt and dust from outside can be dragged in).
The ideal solution for these high-traffic spaces is Amtico flooring. It is specially designed to be tough, strong and long-lasting, and cleaning it is a doddle. It is perfect for a busy family household, as it is practical but also has great aesthetic appeal. You can find Amtico flooring in many different styles (i.e. wood, stone, tiles) too, so there should be a range or a design to suit all tastes.
There is more to decorating a house or a commercial space than just how it looks; the décor you choose can have a big effect on how a room feels as well.
When you walk into a room, you instantly know whether it feels warm and welcoming or cold and clinical. The style you choose for the room plays a big part in this, as modern minimalist design schemes will always feel a little more impersonal than a ‘country-style’ room packed with personal knick-knacks and comfortable fabrics.
However, it is possible to create a warm ambience with any décor and in any room of the house using your secret weapon – Amtico wood-effect flooring.
Wood flooring can instantly warm up a room and add bags of natural charm and character. However, it doesn’t come cheap and it really isn’t that practical. This is where Amtico flooring comes in, offering you a practical solution that looks fantastic and doesn’t cost the earth.
There are so many different effects, textures, tones and styles available that you’ll definitely be able to find something that suits the design scheme you had in mind. Amtico floors will last you a long time too, withstanding anything your rambunctious children and pets can throw at it.
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