Room planning & preparation
When you’re transforming your home, planning is one of the most important stages. It sets your project up for success.
You’ll need to consider the space, as well as how much traffic it gets so you can consider how durable your flooring needs to be. If you’re indulging in underfloor heating, your flooring choice will need to be compatible with that too. And don’t forget underlay too!
Here are some top tips for planning your room transformation, and of course we have experts on hand to help at every step of the way.
Space
If you have a small room, your flooring choices can make the space look bigger. In a large room, choosing the right flooring can bring things together and create a cosy feel. Consider the effect you want to achieve to find the best option.
Our Carpetright Visualiser tool is great for this stage. You can see which flooring does the best job in your own home! Take a photo of the room you’re transforming and try different flooring types until you find one you just love. Or you can use one of our example rooms for inspiration and guidance.
Your lifestyle and your flooring
Is the room you’re transforming the hub of the home? If that’s true it probably gets a lot of foot traffic and your flooring choice will need to be up to the challenge! Fortunately, you don’t have to sacrifice style for durability. There are tons of hardwearing floors that manage to multitask and look amazing too.
Our flooring experts have curated our carpet collection, ensuring we have flooring types suitable for every different lifestyle. We’ve even labelled our flooring to give an idea of the rooms it would be best suited for. All you have to do is browse and pick what you fancy!
Opting for the luxury of underfloor heating?
If you’re going with hard flooring, you might also consider underfloor heating. Be sure to check that the flooring you have your heart set on is suitable with this heating type. (Lots are, don’t worry.) The same goes for underlay too!
Specialist underlay has a low tog rating and is designed to allow air to circulate and let the heat through the floor for toasty toes.
If you’re unsure, why not speak with one of our Carpetright flooring experts? You can book a free no obligation home consultation online today by clicking here.
A little help on measuring up
This is the most important part of the preparation stage! The right measurements mean that you’ll get the right amount of flooring delivered for fitting.
We’d always advise that you measure twice to be totally confident you’ve got the right numbers.
- Draw a simple diagram of the room you’re transforming. These drawings don’t need to be perfect.
- For simple rooms that are square or rectangle, multiply the width by the length. For example, a room that’s 3m x 5m would require 15m² of flooring.
- Add an additional 50-100mm to each edge to allow for wastage.
- If your room includes recesses or chimney breasts, you’ll still need to measure the complete surface area, as the flooring will be cut around them.
- If this is tricky, measure and write these onto the diagram, you can add them all together at the end to work out the total area.
- Remember to measure to the back of any doorframes or trims.
For more helpful advice on measuring a room accurately, check out our fitting guides.
Sub flooring, preparations required ahead of laying your new flooring
You’ll need to clear your room of all furniture. If you’ve opted for our fitting service, your fitter will move up to five items of furniture.
The sub flooring needs to be prepared before your flooring can be laid. If this isn’t right, you won’t get the best finish from your new flooring.
Your sub flooring should be smooth, even and dry. It may need screeding or hardboard to achieve the right finish.
If you’ve opted for our fitting service, choosing to use Which? approved fitters, they’ll let you know whether or not this is required. They’ll also be able to do the work for you for a small additional fee.
If you see signs of damp on either your flooring or sub flooring it is important to treat this before having your new flooring laid. Then take preventative measures to make sure it doesn’t come back.
Helpful planning applications
Our room visualiser shows you how different flooring types can change the look and feel of a room. You can even upload a picture of your own room to get the best idea of how it’ll look. Or you can use our example rooms for inspiration.
Planner 5D allows you to experience a virtual reality room. You can refurnish, reorganise and redecorate it, all within the app. Choose furniture from a range of retailers, and then create a floor plan by setting it where you want. Change things around to get them right, and there’s no risk of putting your back out either.
Magicplan is a handy app allows you to create a floor plan in a super simple way, just by taking photos. Edit easily by adding objects, annotations and prices to help you to budget your whole room.
Get room measurements instatement with the Stanley Smart Measure Pro app. It saves time and will give accurate estimates for how much material you’ll need for your project.
