It’s amazing what a difference clean, fresh floor coverings can do for your home. If you are in the market to throw out your tired old floor, Shirley Pai Hilton of Kahala Pacific Floors has distilled down some of the information from her monthly Great Flooring 101 webinar to share with you as quick tips when shopping for new flooring.

First off, if you are thinking about wood, go to a specialist. The large home improvement stores rarely carry anything in the way of wood that can be called good quality. Also, with Hawaii’s humidity, move away from solid wood and go with an engineered floor that has a decent wear layer on it. You want to be able to refinish it at least a few times. This is pretty much the best bang for your flooring buck.

Advertisement

If it is laminate you are thinking of, think again. Although it has been a durable, budget-friendly option for many years, the new luxury vinyl floors have really pushed it out of contention. Either way, you are just dealing with a photograph sitting on the surface, and you can never refinish the floor, but the additional feature of the vinyl being waterproof has left laminate dead in the water. The current generation of luxury vinyl is also rigid, which cuts down on expensive floor prep (smoothing out the subfloor). Kahala Pacific Floors currently has hundreds of different looks to choose from in their showroom.

Porcelain is probably your best choice when it comes to a tile. While natural stone is the ultimate in elegance and beauty, it does require more maintenance and many varieties are not as durable as porcelain. Ceramic tiles are also still on the market, but they are not as strong as porcelain due to being more porous. Grouts have also come a long way to save you time and elbow grease keeping things clean.

This is a mere fraction of what you can learn at Kahala’s monthly webinar. Its next 60-minute online session is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 18. Enjoy learning about flooring and installation from the comfort of your own home, and everyone who signed up gets special pricing on everything they sell, including installation. Call 808-847-7711 to reserve a seat or email sales@piiwood.com.

KAHALA PACIFIC FLOORS
CONTACT 808-847-7711

Advertisement