Nowadays, even the cheaper options for interior décor have stepped up their game and proved themselves to be worthy competitors to the pricier options. The reason is both due to the fact that manufacturing costs have gone down and also due to the fact that customer demands have gone up, leading to a significant increase in the quality output of even the cheapest options for your home décor. The statement equally applies to fixtures, fittings and every other kind of addition to your home.In the realm of flooring, wooden flooring has found itself a worthy competitor in laminate flooring Melbourne.
Despite it being previously judged as a cheap alternative to solid wood, and seen as an option for the less economically strong households, nowadays, laminate floors have proven themselves a beautiful addition to just about any home. They have evolved from their plastic-like ugly selves of the 70s, and gone on to become exact replicas of wooden flooring in every aesthetic aspect, at the same time ridding themselves of the minuses that wooden flooring inherently has.To start with, laminate floors are basically a core that has been sandwiched in between clear layers of melamine resin. The topmost surface below the resin layers is basically a high-resolution photograph of real wood, meant to imitate the look of wood. The resin layers are transparent, but they can withstand wear and tear, improving the durability of the flooring. Despite what might seem an expensive procedure to manufacture them, laminate floors are insanely cheap, costing one third to one fourth less than solid and engineered wood respectively.
Furthermore, unlike real timber flooring, laminate floors are capable of withstanding moisture and under-floor heating, which means they won’t suffer from warping or shrinking. Their many different lengths and widths (that usually mimic real wood) make them much easier to install. Whilst their lifespan is usually an average of twenty to thirty years, their eco-friendliness makes them an ideal option for environmentally conscious homeowners.On the other hand, wooden flooring has the unbeatable factor of being the ‘real deal’ – you can easily see that potential buyers are more interested in homes that have natural wood versus laminate floors. Whilst laminate floors may have caught up in the looks department, a closer inspection can still reveal their lack of authenticity – not to add, a laminate floor cannot easily reproduce the warmth and sound that real wood creates, nor can it match up to the longevity of wooden flooring, that can easily approach a hundred years or so.Accordingly, when you weigh your options, make sure to not only consider the price tag – there are so many factors that might make one option better than the other when it comes to your own home.