Flooring Ideas For Small Spaces – Flooring Ideas That Maximize Visual Appeal
From creamy hardwood floors to vinyl tiles arranged in eye-catching geometric patterns, the right flooring choice can help you create the illusion of spaciousness and bring warmth to a small space. Here’s few suggestions that can maximize the visual appeal in small areas.
It might seem counterintuitive, but wider planks or tiles will actually have the most impact on a small space when it comes to being perceived as open: narrow planks add unnecessary grout or trim lines and small grip patterns that disrupt the openness of a space. Even in a very small room, look for laminate, carpet or luxury vinyl tile (LVP) planks that are at least 12 square inches.
Wide Plank Laminate Flooring
You can make the room look bigger by choosing laminate flooring with planks wider than 4 inches (the wider the boards, the fewer seams there are to shrink the room).
Or using herringbone or chevron patterns to provide visual interest for a large open layout. These patterns are done using different sized boards at 45-degree angles to create a dynamic and more visually interesting area.
Choosing continuous flooring is another way to make rooms feel bigger by eliminating the transitions between small rooms that pinch your square footage, such as hardwood floors that flow seamlessly from kitchen to dining space to kitchen nook or ceramic spread over all your floorspace.
Monochromatic Vinyl Tiles
When it comes to small spaces, nothing beats luxury vinyl tile (LVT), which mimics hardwood or stone floors, especially because it is durable and shock-absorbent. Plus, the underfoot surface is, well, underfoot, making it great for the open layout since all the floors in each room flow into one another.
Lighter tones such as those modelling light woods or whites allow the natural light of a small space to reflect and visually enlarge the area. The next way that I add personality and contrast is to use darker blues or purples making the contrast within the room stand out.
Asymmetrical patterns can feel unsettled, and symmetrical ones balanced and harmonious. Herringbone patters give long, narrow hallways and small kitchens visual interest; your eye enjoys dipping down one path only to rise again and traverse another. Tiling on the diagonal creates an illusion of expanded space and a subtly wider room.
Patterned Ceramic Tiles
Patterned ceramic tile has a unique graphic element that brings life and style to small apartments by allowing the home owner to imbue their personal sense of style and creativity through the use of designs that suit their tastes. Patterned tiles give the effect of extending the length and width of rooms.
These staggered tile grids is where the fun comes in. The tiles are offset 50 per cent achieved by angling each subsequent row so it intersects the middle of the previous row to create visually arresting screens but also to direct attention away from any blemishes towards the middle for a more centred sense of spatial symmetry.
Be cautious to use patterned tiles sparingly in smaller spaces as they can overpower, even appear cluttered when used abundantly.
Diagonal Lines
Whatever your design objective, diagonals, if used well, can make a big impact by emphasising the focus of an image; or they can help make small rooms feel larger by removing attention from walls and the furniture that sits on them. In other words, they can literally trick the eye and make rooms seem bigger by deflecting our gaze away from them.
Higher ceilings are a good layout, too. Wider flooring planks can also add dimension and visually expand a room when placed along the longest wall.
Smaller spaces, for example, benefit from less pattern so as not to feel confining and overblown. In these instances, choosing muted, light-hued, low-pattern backings might be the better choice than colourful, busy patterns that might make rooms feel overblown and cluttered.
Chevron and Herringbone Patterns
Herringbone flooring and chevron patterns at a bricks-and-mortar small business adds class. In a rectangular room, the zigzag but symmetrical herringbone pattern of its rectangular boards (or tiles, etc) makes retail spaces look bigger by drawing the eye diagonally across them – it first emerged in 16th-century France where, despite its ‘herring’ name, it might have been inspired by the bones of North Sea fish.
Chevron floors, in which shorter floorboards are laid diagonally to create a chic lattice pattern and less visible joints than are found in herringbone parquet floors, can add an understated sophistication and old-world charm that no other floor design can match. With its constant changing perceptions of wave-like beauty and undulating ripples of glory, chevron flooring will never go out of style.
Large Tiles
Large tile creates a modern,sophisticated ,aesthetic feel. Also it is the one way to make a room seem larger . You can enhance this effect by using dark tile colours that visually enlarge the space.
Patterned tiles bring some interest without overwhelming the smaller size of the space. For kitchens and bathrooms, tiles with a textured surface add interest and offer extra grip, marrying practicality with aesthetics.
Alongside tints and arrangements, a simple alteration in the direction of your flooring pattern can have a dramatic impact on your perception of a space. Horizontally laid subway tiles are elongating and draw the eye upward.