What is Vinyl Flooring?

Vinyl flooring can be one of the best bang-for-your-buck investments you can make.  New floors can help any room look brighter and newer and bring new life to an old or dark space.  Even though you may not notice it as much as wall colors or decorations in a room, the floor covering has a lot to do with how any room feels, sounds and looks.

Vinyl is one of the most popular types of resilient flooring used today.  Resilient flooring is called such because it differs from both carpet and hard flooring options.  Hard flooring options include concrete, metal, and wood while the other extreme is soft carpeted flooring.  Resilient flooring falls in between hard floors and carpeting and offers a variety of advantages over both.  Resilient flooring can be one of the least expensive ways to cover your floors.  Resilient flooring can come in large rolls or tiles that can be easily glued to your subfloor with very little waste or labor.  Resilient flooring has advantages over hard floors because it offers some cushioning and warmth under foot as well as a significant sound deadening.  Besides being less expensive, resilient flooring has been proven to outlast carpet and wear much better.

Besides all these advantages, resilient flooring also can be a beautiful and decorative choice for any room.  Since resilient flooring is manufactured, it can be created and designed to have an infinite variety of colors and textures.  These designs and textures can be created to look just like many hard floors including wood and stone tile or to have unique designs that will bring your own personal touch to your home.

All resilient flooring isn’t made from vinyl.  Vinyl actually is one of the most recent types of resilient flooring to hit the market, and has only just gain popularity since the 1940s.  Before vinyl became popular, linoleum and rubber were the two main types of resilient flooring available.  Linoleum is a great floor covering and is often confused with vinyl.  Linoleum is made from all natural resources so it still maintains a lot of popularity with those who wish to decrease their effect on the environment.  However, linoleum does not wear quite as well as vinyl will, and linoleum is not completely water proof so it requires regular sealing or waxing or it will start absorbing stains and colors.

Vinyl flooring is made from long chain plastic molecules combined with plasticizers, pigments, and multiple layers to create a floor covering that is both soft and durable.  Through heat and pressure, the molecules that make up vinyl are pressed into tiles or long sheets that can be easily applied to your subfloor.  For more information on the construction of vinyl flooring check out this article on how vinyl flooring is made.

The construction of vinyl flooring is what makes it so resistant to stains, scratches and scuffs as well as resilient, soft and warm.  Vinyl flooring is inexpensive, easy to install, durable and can help your room have exactly the look and feel you want it to.  If vinyl is the best flooring option for your project, the next step is to choose the colors and textures you want in your floors.  The best way to do that, is to see and touch samples for yourself!