DIY Network

Floors and Tile: Choosing the Floor Coverings From "Home IQ" episode DHIQ-118

When it comes to the overall look of the interior of a home, few finishes are as important as the flooring. It needs to be beautiful, durable and affordable!

In this week's episode of Home IQ, the homeowners (Brad and Lynn Oberg) have to make some tough decisions concerning the flooring in their new home.

In DIY's new Home IQ series, you'll follow the Oberg family during the decision-making process of building this beautiful new home.

In this week's episode of Home IQ, Brad and Lynn Oberg (the homeowners) choose the flooring and tiling for their beautiful new home and the installers lay the carpeting and tiles.

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Figure A

When it comes to floor coverings the choices are endless. "It's like a big jigsaw puzzle," Lynn said, "especially when you're starting to pick colors. You have start somewhere, but then you have to kind of keep going and make sure it all flows together."

Our homeowners were able to somewhat simplify the tile shopping by going to a supplier that had a huge selection of samples under one roof. "It's very confusing [to pick tile]", Laura Nagy, sales consultant for Best Tile, said. "We just dig in and start in one area [a particular room in the house, for example] and try to focus on that area, and we can help guide them [the homeowners] to the right selections."

Choosing the Tiling

The Oberg's started with the front-door section or entrance way (figure A) and worked their way back. They knew they wanted something that would make a dramatic statement. "We wanted a feature in the floor in the entrance way, and we were looking at water-cut medallions with Venetian patterns ? but we probably could have afforded one that was 12" in diameter," Brad said. What the couple ended up choosing was a stunning floor that resembles a marble area rug that's built-in (check the image at the top of this page for a close-up view). "I'm very pleased with it," Brad said.
Because Brad and Lynn designed their home with an open floor plan (figure B), they wanted to make sure that their floor selections were well coordinated with one another. "We had to be very careful about colors and textures and where we put things because you could see from one space to another, and where you had transitioning between the carpet in here (figure C) and the tile in the four-seasons room we ended up doing a feature strip of tile (figure D) ," Lynn said. "We didn't want one [flooring] to butt up against the other."

It's also important that the color and texture of the floor work well with the other design elements within the room, so when it was time to go shopping, Lynn brought along plenty of swatches and fabric samples to make sure she and Brad were picking the right tile. She even brought a piece of porcelain from her kitchen and a pillow case from her bedroom to assist in the tile-selection process.

Figure B

Figure C

Figure D

	Figure E
	Figure F

Choosing the Carpeting

With most of the tile selection done, it's time for our homeowners to choose their carpeting, and as with tile, carpeting choices are endless. You have to consider the height, type, color, durability, etc.

The first brand of carpeting our homeowners looked at came with three different pile heights and several color selections (figure E). The one type Brad and Lynn knew they "didn't" want was shag. "We lived through shag once and we're not going to do that again," Brad said.

One concern for Brad was that he needed to know how long he had to decide on the color, and the sales representative told him up and until the time he measures the rooms.

Tip: Carol A. Evans, a sales consultant for Molyneaux Tile and Carpet, suggests that one thing to consider when choosing carpeting is that you have way more paint color selections than you do carpet color selections, so you may want to narrow down to one or two carpets and get an idea of what paint but make the actual carpet selection before you go to the actual tint of the paint. And this is due to the fact that there are countless paint color choices.

For the master bedroom Brad and Lynn wanted to make a "bolder" color statement. The wall color is a light Tuscan yellow, and the carpet consultant suggested a blue to set it off. Brad said he would have never considered -- or conceived -- a blue carpet until he saw the fabric beside the carpet (figure F).

Figure G

River Rocks for Flooring?

On one of his many trips to the tile store, Brad discovers river rock for the flooring around the Jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom, but Lynn wasn't so sure about the comfort level until she gave them a test run (figure G), which changed her mind. She was also surprised that the river rock wasn't slippery. And at $16 per square foot, river rock is much less expensive than marble.

In the next segment Brad's river rock presents challenges for the installers.

RESOURCES :

DuPont Stainmaster® Information

To contact DuPont about the Stainmaster, click here.

To visit the Stainmaster section of DuPont's website, click here.
DuPont
Kennesaw, GA 30144
Email: info@dupont.com
Website: www.dupont.com

Joists Information
SpaceJoist® TE, LLC
Website: www.spacejoist.com

Tile (Best Tile, Inc.)
Best Tile Distributors, Inc.
Website: www.besttile.com

Molyneaux Tile and Carpet
Website: www.beautifulfloors.com

Carpet (Boyle Carpet Service)
Boyle Carpet Service, Inc.
Website: www.boylecarpet.com

Tile and Carpet (Molyneaux)
Molyneaux Tile and Carpet
Website: www.beautifulfloors.com

River Rocks Information
Nicklas Supply, Inc./Splash
Website: www.wit-co.com
or www.nicklassupply.com

GUESTS :

Brad and Lynn Oberg
Homeowners
Company: IBACOS (Brad)
Title: Co-Founder/Chief Technology Officer
Website: www.ibacos.com

Greg Allen
Site Supervisor
Hendolhurst Homes
955 Markman Park Rd.
Baden, PA 15005
Phone: 724-935-5658
Fax: 724-935-0884
E-mail: gcrbs@adelphia.net

Bruce Dickson
Project Manager
IBACOS
Website: www.ibacos.com

Ken Donovan
Tile Installer
Boyle Carpet Service, Inc.
5800 Perrysville Rd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15229
Phone: 412-931-2350
Fax: 412-931-8476
E-mail: info@boylecarpet.com
Website: www.boylecarpet.com

Laura Nagy
Sales Consultant
Best Tile, Inc.
11040 Perry Highway
PO Box 848
Wexford, PA 15090
Phone: 724-935-6965
Fax: 724-935-9333
Website: www.besttile.com

Steve Chase
Sales Consultant
Molyneaux Tile and Carpet
305 Commerce Park Dr.
Cranberry, PA 16066
Toll-free: 866-Floor-Me (866-356-5150)
Phone: 724-776-2525
E-mail: info@beautifulfloors.com
Website: www.beautifulfloors.com

Tony Macioce
Carpet Installer
Molyneaux Tile and Carpet
See contact information, above.

Carol A. Evans
Sales Consultant
Molyneaux Tile and Carpet
See contact information, above.

Chris Haley
Structural Engineer
SpaceJoist® TE, LLC
Toll-free: 800-238-8678
Fax: 817-652-3079
E-mail: info@spacejoist.com
Website: www.spacejoist.com

Dan Keener
Sales Consultant
Boyle Carpet Service, Inc.
5800 Perrysville Rd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15229
Phone: 412-931-2350
Fax: 412-931-8476
E-mail: info@boylecarpet.com
Website: www.boylecarpet.com