Looking to breathe new life into your home with contemporary flooring? Here, Donna Hannaway, Head of Marketing UK and Ireland at Forbo Flooring Systems gives the low-down on Luxury Vinyl Tiles and why it continues to tick all the right boxes for homeowners.
Whether you’re working on an exciting self-build project or in the midst of a home renovation, choosing the right flooring for the space, that suits your unique style and will stand up to everyday life, is a major decision. There are numerous factors to consider, from design through to durability and performance. A flooring that you can easily install yourself can also be ideal, not only helping to stretch your budget but also allowing you to fit it on your own time, as opposed to waiting for a professional fitter to be available.
With all of this in mind, it’s no wonder that click-together Luxury Vinyl Tiles (LVT) continue to be a popular and sought-after flooring solution for modern homes.
Design
One of the reasons for LVT’s rise in popularity is the wide array of beautiful, realistic wood and stone effects on offer. While wooden flooring has been a staple of interior design schemes for countless years, helping to create a warm, cosy and welcoming interior, real wood flooring can be costly to install, as well as difficult to maintain. Forbo’s range of LVT floorings feature design highlights, such as natural colour variations and in-register embossing structures to help emphasise the texture of the planks, contributing to a truly authentic aesthetic. What’s more, they also come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and in both plank and tile formats, meaning you can experiment with installation designs.
Forbo’s Allura Click Pro and Enduro Click LVT collections feature a range of authentic look wood, concrete and stone designs, reflecting modern aesthetics and colours.
Durability
Installing new flooring throughout a home is a major investment. As such, you’ll be wanting to look for solutions that are practical, durable, easy to maintain and will stand the test of time. For these reasons, Luxury Vinyl Tiles are once again the perfect choice, ideal for busy family homes, living areas, hallways and kitchens.
Extremely hard wearing and scratch and stain resistant, Forbo’s LVT ranges are also easy to clean and maintain, thanks to their highly durable PUR surface finish.
Acoustics
While acoustics may not be your first thought when it comes to choosing flooring for your home, it is an important consideration. With smooth flooring often chosen for busy areas of the home (including hallways and living areas) due to its durability and longevity, this can present challenges in terms of unwanted noise.
Understandably, your home should be a welcoming space, where you can relax and unwind at the end of a long day. As such, you’ll want to minimise both airborne sound – such as the noise from conversation, appliances and TVs – and impact sound. Impact sound occurs when an object hits another object, such as feet on a floor, which generates sound that travels through a building.
At Forbo, we offer a range of foam underlays that are recommended for use with our Allura and Enduro LVT collections, ensuring additional sound deadening properties and reduced impact sound levels.
Installation
Regardless of whether you’re employing a professional flooring fitter or doing a DIY job, ease of installation is key. As well as keeping disruption to you and your family to a minimum, a hassle-free installation can help to speed up a project.
If you’re worried about the installation, the adhesive-free click-together LVT flooring is perfect. Both Forbo’s Allura Click Pro and Enduro Click ranges feature proven click locking systems, meaning the panels simply snap together easily. As well as eliminating harmful VOCs that can be associated with adhesives, this method of installation means that you can walk on the flooring immediately after it has been laid – perfect for busy households or where a quick turnaround is required.
Another benefit of adhesive-free LVT flooring is that if a tile or plank is accidentally damaged during its lifespan, it can be easily removed and replaced, without having to replace the entire floor.
For the sustainably minded, adhesive-free flooring is also great from an environmental point of view. As well as reducing waste during installation, the absence of adhesive means the flooring is suitable for re-use and recycling at the end of its lifespan, contributing towards material circularity.
Taking this further, Forbo’s Allura Click Pro contains up to 30% recycled content and is manufactured in factory that uses 100% renewable electricity and zero waste manufacturing principles.
The perfect fit for a busy family home
Deva Bank, a 100-year-old house full of traditional charm, is located in the picturesque village of Parkgate, sitting on the banks of the River Dee and boasts impressive views of the Wirral Peninsula and Wales. Although the property oozed character, it did not meet the needs of a large family, prompting the homeowners to embark on a full renovation.
The homeowner commented: “With three young children, we had to choose finishes that could cope with our busy family life – including the floor. We also had to strike a balance between functionality and protecting the character of the home, which is why we opted for Forbo’s Allura Click Pro Luxury Vinyl Tiles in the Central Oak colourway, as it provides a beautiful, traditional wood aesthetic without the price associated with real hardwood.
“We had the adhesive free flooring installed throughout the majority of the property, including the hallway, living room, study, kitchen/dining room, utility room, downstairs WC, bathroom and two ensuites. We were particularly keen on this colourway as it has a deep grain running through it, which does a fantastic job of replicating real wood. Not only this, but it created the perfect backdrop for the rest of the house, matching our colour palette of neutral shades and green hues, striking a good balance between a contemporary and modern design, without taking away from the traditional feel of the house.
“Due to the large areas that needed to be covered – totalling 160m2 – we needed something that could be installed fast, ensuring the rest of the project remained on schedule and the Allura Click Pro delivered this. It’s a really easy flooring to clean up, meaning we’ve been able to maintain its appearance, even with all the usage it sees.”
Forbo Flooring Systems
We have been manufacturing flooring for 150 years, prioritising performance, aesthetics and sustainability, with options to suit all budgets and lifestyles.
Allura Click Pro offers the ideal DIY flooring for your home. Available in 20 beautiful trend-led tile and plank options, it is quick and easy to install without adhesives and suitable for use on uneven subfloors.
Similarly, Enduro reflects modern and aesthetics and colours, with 20 authentic-look wood and concrete designs, all of which are available in the adhesive free Click construction for flexible installation options.
Explore the collections, here: https://residential-flooring.forbo.co.uk/.
