If you decide to make a light floor in the interior of your home, you can’t go wrong. This technique will make the room lighter and airier, but at the same time expensive and luxurious. In Soviet times, it was not customary to make the floor a light shade. On the contrary, everyone believed that it was better to make the floor a couple of shades darker than the walls. However, today white floors are being made more and more often, and it is the light floor covering that has become fashionable and suitable for any interior. And to help you with the difficult choice of flooring for your interior, Dekorin has selected the following tips.
Possibilities and features of gray floor
- A dark gray floor in the interior can visually reduce the space of the room or make it narrower, while a light gray floor can cause the opposite effect.
- Not too dark shades of gray do a good job of uncluttering an interior cluttered with furniture, bringing a little freshness and lightness into it.
- A room with a gray floor creates a calm and cozy atmosphere, conducive to proper rest and recuperation.
- If you can find a laminate on sale that has an unusual color (a mixture of gray with beige or brown), then using such material you can create such an unusual gray floor in the interior that its appearance will change your entire understanding of the interior decor.
But the feeling of relaxation and harmony of space that people experience when they spend a long time in such interiors often prevents them from concentrating, their performance decreases and it becomes difficult to do any painstaking work. It is for this reason that the same designers do not recommend laying gray parquet or laminate flooring in study corners and work rooms.
But rooms in gray tones allow you to harmoniously collect your thoughts and tune in to a philosophical mood.
A gray floor color will look great in the interior of a bedroom or living room. Gray may seem no less attractive in the kitchen or dining area, provided that the owners are not afraid of the certain coldness of the atmosphere it creates. However, the last drawback can be easily corrected by adding bright colors or beige shades to the interior palette.
Floor finishing material
What material to choose for the floor: laminate, natural board, parquet, linoleum? It's actually not that important. But the advantages and disadvantages of this option can be considered. Today, buyers most often choose laminate. There are several reasons for this:
- Resistance to external factors.
- Durability.
- Natural wood texture, natural shades.
- Lots of design options.
Today it is not necessary to choose a material with a wood texture - there is a laminate for tiles and stone. The option is quite interesting, especially considering that the material lasts for many years. Laminate flooring has virtually no disadvantages; the coating costs less than natural parquet.
Linoleum is also a great choice. It is possible to choose a texture that differs from the texture of wood. Designers recommend using other types of finishes, because wood ones do not always allow you to fully convey all the nuances of wenge.
In addition to linoleum, self-leveling flooring also provides similar opportunities. Here the designer faces a difficult task. Natural wood is not always appropriate, and a plain floor in combination with a wenge door looks too strict. A certain decor and design is required. When filling the floor, you can use an abstract geometric pattern in light colors that will harmonize with the color of the interior door.
Natural parquet in light colors is combined with a wenge-colored door. This is the case when the wood texture does not spoil the overall appearance. It is no coincidence that parquet is considered a universal material.
What interior styles does gray flooring suit?
When designing an interior, you should consider what wall color suits the gray floor and that it is not equally suitable for all styles.
It is best to fit a gray floor into the following interior styles:
- strict classic;
- high tech;
- modern
In addition, gray laminate will look good in some ethnic styles, for example, Scandinavian.
Photo of a gray floor in different interior styles (high-tech, modern, Scandinavian):
In order not to get a too cold, deathly gray interior, it is better to dilute it by experimenting with a warm palette of wall coverings, or add furniture from correctly selected types of wood. The color scheme of furniture can be quite rich; a light gray floor in the interior looks great with furniture of the following colors:
- vanilla;
- zebrano;
- wenge.
If the owner seems that the room lacks special softness and comfort, then this impression can be softened with the help of objects painted in warm colors, with a texture close to wood.
Selecting flooring material
There are not many options for choosing flooring:
- natural wood (parquet);
- laminate;
- linoleum;
- ceramic tile.
Perhaps some readers of the article would classify carpet as a floor covering, but this is not so. Carpet or carpet is an external decorative protective covering; the basis will still be the materials from the listed list.
The floor covering rarely changes, so it must be strong from the very beginning. It is unacceptable to use flooring materials that do not match the type of room.
The color of the floor should match the design, light flooring should match the colors of the walls, dark floor should match the doors and baseboards.
Natural wood
To produce flooring materials in light shades, oak, maple, ash, birch, and hornbeam are used.
Any of these materials has a big advantage - naturalness and environmental friendliness. But there are also disadvantages:
- Artificial lightening. Natural wood, when processed into parquet, is lightened in factories in large batches. When released, the color turns out to be monochromatic, especially if the manufacturer cares about its image. But how natural wood will behave under the influence of light, moisture and other external factors can only be guessed at. In some places, if exposed to direct sunlight, stains and discoloration may appear.
- Stylistic affiliation. Natural wood flooring is used for minimalist and sometimes modern interiors. In a modern high-tech style, the naturalness of wood will become an absurd design mistake.
Laminate
Laminate is a universal floor covering for any room. The modern market allows you to choose laminate flooring in a wide variety of shades, even white.
With the right choice of characteristics, laminate can be used in the kitchen, living room, hallway, even in the bathroom. For places where moisture accumulates, care must be taken to ensure that the laminate has moisture-resistant qualities.
The only disadvantage of laminate as a covering for light-colored floors is the method of its installation. If the laminate is laid across the line of light, the joints will be too visible. For a dark shade of laminate, the problem is also important. The laminate must be laid along the line of light.
Linoleum
The most common type of floor covering, linoleum, gained its popularity back in the last century. This material is practical for use in any room, washes well, and fits comfortably when laying.
In construction stores you can choose linoleum in different colors, including light shades that imitate wood or laminate.
Light-colored linoleum flooring is difficult to distinguish from a well-laid laminate.
Linoleum is sold in cut pieces of standard width - from 1.5 m to 4 m. If the room is wider, the covering has to be glued together. This is done using a special technology, preferably by professional layers, but the seam at the joint is noticeable in any case. Over time, it can come unglued, water from cleaning gets into the gap, and the overall unattractive appearance of the floor becomes visible.
Another disadvantage of linoleum can be considered that it belongs to the household, semi-commercial, commercial class. The higher the class, the greater the wear resistance of the material (the ability to withstand the weight of furniture, resistance to pressure from heels, etc.) The higher the durability, the higher the price.
Ceramic tile
The most durable flooring material is ceramic tiles. The variety of colors, shapes, and sizes of this material is simply amazing in quantity.
Tiles come in different qualities and, accordingly, different prices.
When choosing tiles in light shades, you need to pay attention to the pattern or pattern, if it is present on the surface. It should be combined with the overall pattern of the interior. For example, when laying tiles in the kitchen, the same pattern of ceramic chips on the floor and countertop will look advantageous.
Do not forget that ceramic tiles on the floor are cold and slippery material. Before choosing this material, you should consider additional insulation (warm floor or carpet - it doesn’t matter).
When choosing colors for walls and floors, it is necessary to maintain stylistic harmony. The use of a light floor is acceptable in different design styles; the only difference is in the materials for the floor. For modernism with bright colors, classics with pastels, rococo with antiquity - a light floor is ideal.
How to combine a gray floor with other colors?
- The extreme options for gray are white and black. By connecting them, gray shades greatly soften their contrast, making the interior less flashy and provocative. But to create compositions with this color you need to have practical experience and professional knowledge. After all, it is not so easy to understand which walls are best combined with a gray floor, so that later there will be fewer problems with the selection of furniture.
- The combination of gray and blue colors looks very harmonious; this composition will fit perfectly into the interiors of a bedroom, living room or office.
- Gray pairs well with cool color palettes, including blues and purples.
- The combination of gray and yellow is quite rare, and an abundance of yellow inclusions should not be allowed, but light yellow-gray stripes would be appropriate.
- The best wallpaper for a gray floor is beige or light green; it will keep the interior cozy and make it elegant at the same time.
How to choose the right wallpaper for wenge doors?
Correctly choosing a color scheme for the walls, if you decide to choose a wenge door, is both simple and difficult. The main difficulty is that this color requires luxury and aristocracy in terms of wall decoration. You can't get by with cheap wallpaper here. It is necessary to buy not non-woven wallpaper, but, as a maximum, vinyl or glass wallpaper. So, what colors are suitable in this case:
- classic of the genre - white,
- soft cream,
- all shades of red, with the exception of crimson,
- yellow,
- green,
- blue.
In the process of decorating yourself, please note that purchasing expensive furniture and decorative elements does not always guarantee a positive result. Inept use of paints can ruin all your efforts. And it will be a great pity that money and effort were wasted in vain.
Important! Remember, depending on whether you are doing the interior of a kitchen, living room or bedroom, the choice of colors should be different.
Wenge doors are always stylish and aristocratic. If they are correctly combined with other decorative elements, then your home will be worthy of kings.
Common mistakes with gray floors
The main disadvantage of a gray floor is its coldness. If the interior is not given warm accents, it will turn into a completely unattractive, lifeless desert. In addition, monotony cannot be allowed here, therefore, if gray doors with an incorrectly selected texture complement the gray floor, then such an interior may be doomed to failure in advance.
If the project has a light gray floor, what walls can harmonize with it? For example, not too bright, dark wallpaper is quite suitable, as well as introducing rather popular metallic-colored furniture into the interior. However, under no circumstances should you polish everything in a gray room until it shines, turning it into a chrome box.
To enliven even a hopelessly “gray” interior, you need to boldly use unusual patterns and ornaments, work with shades, glossy and matte surfaces, combine fur, silk and other textures.
Selecting the color of the baseboard
The role of skirting boards and borders in the interior cannot be underestimated. If they are well chosen, the beauty of the walls and floor will be emphasized. Skirting boards can match the color of the flooring, doors, walls, and the most fashionable solution is to choose these elements in accordance with the color of the window frames (not white). You can use contrasting tones or those that continue the floor pattern. If the doors in the room are light and the floor is dark, you should choose baseboards to match the door.
It’s not always possible to think through all the details on your own. In this case, it is better to use the services of a professional designer. Specialists know exactly the techniques of zoning, improving aesthetics and visually optimizing the appearance of a room, so saving on their services is sometimes impractical.
Gray floor in the kitchen
The color of the floor in a gray kitchen or dining area may seem no less attractive, provided that the owners are not afraid of a certain coldness of the atmosphere it creates. The gray floor in the kitchen not only looks presentable, but is also extremely practical, since traces of dirt, grease and stains are much less visible on a gray background.
For small kitchens
A gray-white floor in a small kitchen will be no less acceptable than a combination of gray shades of different saturation, as well as gray-beige and gray-blue. In general, for small rooms, tiles need modest sizes.
If the goal is to visually increase the space, then it is better to lay either tiles with a simple, inconspicuous pattern, or without it at all, in a single color, since the more complex and noticeable the pattern, the more it conceals the space. On the contrary, a kitchen with a floor that has a smooth surface texture will appear more spacious and brighter.
For spacious kitchens
In spacious kitchens, ceramic tiles of any size can be installed, although larger elements look better here. Tile of non-standard shape, for example, hexagonal or with rounded edges, looks great. Here you can try a bunch of shapes and sizes, as well as different installation methods (diagonal, herringbone and others) to achieve an unusual look for the interior.
You can, abandoning stereotypical solutions, grout the tile joints with grout of a contrasting color. Then the grid of tile rows will appear more clearly, which will draw attention to the floor covering. If you use a darker grout, the tiles will appear cleaner and lighter.
Photo of a gray floor in the kitchen:
The combination of a gray floor in the kitchen with walls and furniture
It is very important to find a harmonious combination of the design of the floor, ceiling and walls. Also, you should not lose sight of kitchen furniture and accessories. However, you should always remember the functional features of this room, therefore, even if you have a gray floor in the kitchen, it is hardly worth installing white walls in it, since they will get dirty very quickly.
But if you add a white ceiling and light (but not white) walls to a gray floor, then visually the kitchen will be more spacious and brighter.
You should not try another option, where the ceiling is left in a light tone, but the walls are made darker than the floor covering. With this combination, the overall background becomes too dark, the room fades, becomes gloomy, and visually shrinks in volume.
When choosing wallpaper or tiles for walls, combining the color of the floor in a gray kitchen, you must take into account the degree of natural light in the kitchen room:
- On the sunny side, it is wiser to use cool or neutral tones (green, blue, turquoise) so that even a hot stove does not seem so hot.
- If the kitchen faces north, then it is better to warm up its atmosphere with a warm wall color (orange, yellow, peach). The warming color palette of the walls will make the gray floor more pleasant to perceive.
A gray plinth framing the floor of the same color will visually make its area larger, creating the illusion of its continuation.
White kitchen facades will look bright against the background of a dark gray floor, creating an elegant interior. Fans of playful combinations may wonder: if you make a gray floor in the kitchen, what color of the set should you choose? They can combine gray with acid lemon or yellow, bringing, for example, yellow chairs into the dining room interior, and hanging thin lemon organza on the windows. An excellent combination with a gray floor will be formed by cutlery, dishes and appliances made of stainless steel; fortunately, all this does not require a long search on sale.
Photo of a gray floor in the kitchen interior:
And it’s even better, instead of ordinary tiles, to use gray porcelain tiles for the floor, which is its relative, but has a better design and physical and mechanical characteristics. Gray porcelain tiles for the floor in the kitchen interior can be perfectly combined with furniture of a wide variety of colors. A neutral gray floor will be perfectly enlivened by colored spots of furniture, no matter what they are: metallic, wenge, pine or even white.
Psychologists say that the presence of warm colors in the kitchen stimulates appetite, and cold ones, on the contrary, reduces it. This property is especially important to consider for those who want to lose weight.
At the same time, there is no real reason to say that gray tiles make the kitchen interior dull and nondescript. It is important to find the right combination of materials and shades, and the gray kitchen will become beautiful and sophisticated.
Choosing a design for different rooms
Design translated from English means not only to design, but also a plan, drawing, drawing. Therefore, it is better not to keep the design of a home in your head, but to transfer it to paper. Fortunately, the possibilities of the Internet are so great that you can do interior design yourself without hiring professional designers for a lot of money.
Living room design
The living room has long ceased to be exclusively a room for receiving guests. A room in which no one lives permanently, but at the same time serving as a room for the whole family to spend time together, is called a living room.
The living room should be bright, cozy, bring warmth and comfort. The room should be equally pleasant for adults and children. Therefore, it is necessary to achieve a feeling of space, light and cleanliness.
When developing a living room design based on a white floor, you can achieve an expansion of space and a visual increase in area. To do this, you also need to leave the walls a light shade. If you overdo it with white, you can turn a room from cozy and comfortable into cold, distant.
To avoid transition, the design of the living room should contain finishing elements (or decorative elements) in bright or dark colors. These could be doors, baseboards, trim, picture frames, sofas, chairs.
Bedroom design
The bedroom, unlike the living room, does not require visual enlargement. The room may be small, but it must be a cozy space.
To make the bedroom seem warmer, light floors must be complemented by walls in dark pastel colors. Sand, plum, caramel, and chocolate colors are perfect. A dark floor is not the best choice for a bedroom space.
Additionally, you need to think about the color of the furniture and accessories for the bedroom.
If the walls are quite dark, then it is better to choose light curtains, sconces and bedspreads, matching the color of the floor. If the floor and walls remain light, then the textiles must be dark. This will prevent the bedroom from turning into a room without shapes and colors. A harmonious combination of light shades in decoration and dark shades in furniture will add a sense of style, warmth, and harmony to the bedroom. A large number of combinations of white tones will add coldness.
Kitchen and bathroom design
The kitchen and bathroom are rooms where the word “cleanliness” comes first. It is recommended to use the same material for the floor of both rooms. So let's combine them.
The kitchen and bathroom are high-use areas. The number of visits to these places far exceeds the use of the bedroom or living room.
Frequent use of a room increases the level of pollution. Therefore, it is recommended to use a design based on the dark color of the doors, the dark, non-stainable color of the floor, trim, and baseboards. The use of dark color is explained by the low level of soiling, which leads to the need to wipe the product less often, and, accordingly, to less wear.
In fact, everything is far from true. Rooms such as the kitchen and bathroom are cleaned regardless of the appearance of contamination. Rooms with high humidity levels that require special care. Such a room is at risk of mold growth. Therefore, regular ventilation and wiping is a necessary procedure.
Grease stains from cooking require frequent cleaning. Accordingly, using a light color to decorate the kitchen and bathroom is not at all scary and is completely acceptable.
When choosing a light-colored floor when designing a kitchen, you can use the principle of zoning the room. For example, near the kitchen unit, in the passage areas, the shade of the floor can be lighter; the place where the table will be installed can be highlighted with a dark floor.
The advantage of a light-colored floor in these rooms is its versatility. Against the background of a white, coffee, or light gray floor, any wall color will look beautiful. We combine a light floor with any color of the kitchen unit; brightly colored furniture will appear juicier.
A light-colored floor can not only expand the room visually, but also add a sense of cleanliness. A dark floor is significantly inferior in characteristics to a white floor. The color of the floor should hide traces of water drops and stains.
Gray floor in the living room
You can choose a combination of gray with warm shades of wood so that it enhances this impression.
Shades of gray can perfectly emphasize the elegance of high-tech style. Here you also need to be guided by the rule of five colors: in addition to the main one, the interior can combine one additional color and no more than five different shades of gray.
If a gray living room lacks lighting, then to make it visually more spacious, you need to illuminate its walls with soffits, and to make it look sunnier, you can use yellow elements in the decoration of the floor and walls, for example, a large yellow panel or a floor carpet of the same color .
Photo of a gray floor in the living room interior:
How to choose laminate for wenge doors?
- An important thing in this matter will be choosing the shade of wenge you like. And only after you understand that you have made the right decision, you can start decorating the room.
- It is important that the color scheme of the flooring and interior doors be combined, or rather, identical. Don’t get too creative so as not to overdo it with too much color in the rooms.
Interior in wenge style
Gray floor in the bedroom
A bedroom design with a gray floor can easily be decorated in a neoclassical style if you use an antique-style chandelier with candles, a café-au-lait-colored carpet, and a shiny velvet bedspread in the interior. Gray laminate will perfectly emphasize the charm of such an interior.
Photo of a gray floor in a bedroom design:
Gray floor in the bathroom
An attempt to use gray ceramic tiles on the walls and floor of the bathroom will once again emphasize the restraint of forms and the refined simplicity of this room.
It can be safely combined with yellow, red, emerald green, beige and a host of other colors. You can use pearl gray as the main color, which will highlight bright color accents: gilded showers and taps, heated towel rail racks and other interior elements.
Would you like to have a gray floor in your home or have you already decided on it? Share your thoughts in the comments - we are interested in knowing your opinion.
