KEY TO YOUR HOME 2020

30 / KEY TOYOUR HOME renovations A CANVAS BENEATH YOUR FEET Choose the right flooring solution for your home, and feel like you’re walking on sunshine everyday. We come into contact with our floor surfaces everyday, and eventually become so accustomed to the feel and look of them, that we easily overlook their existence in the home. However, to reach this level of comfort with our home floors – where they blend in so seamlessly with our home interiors and daily lives – a lot of thought needs to go into choosing the most ideal floor surfaces during the renovation process. To start off, it helps if you could identify some of the more popular floor surfaces and their respective characteristics. Text Shimin Chu Engineered Wood The cheaper alternative to hardwood floors, engineered wood surfaces provides homeowners with the natural beauty and texture of wood, while minimising the hassle of maintenance. Engineered wood melds timber and wood- grained veneer to create a surfacing material that is strikingly similar to that of organic wood. Yet, they are more resistant to moisture and humidity, making them more ideal and practical as compared to traditional hardwood floors. However, as engineered wood is still real wood, it still requires a certain level of dedicated maintenance, such as cleaning up spills immediately to prevent stains, and not dragging furniture across the surface to not give rise to scratches. The improved durability of engineered wood flooring has rendered it suitable for almost every room in the home, even high humidity rooms like the kitchen. Engineered wood feels good underfoot, which is why they’re usually used in bedrooms. Image courtesy of House of Chais