The floor in your home can have a dramatic impact on the feel of the house. We reveal how to create the effect you want

Flooring can make or break the look of your home but get it right and it can reflect or dominate the personality of your room.

At the moment the vogue is for real wood because it looks great, it's hardwearing and durable and it cleans easily. While it can be expensive if you have a lot of space, if you live in an older property, a real wooden floor may be lurking beneath your existing floor coverings. And if that's the case you're in luck because it can be reclaimed.

Wooden floors
Best For Lounges, halls and dining rooms

Sanding old floorboards is one of the cheapest ways of giving a room a new look. It's dirty work but the results can be fantastic and you should be able to tackle a room in a weekend, including the varnishing. You can sand neglected parquet and original wood-strip floors as well, but be careful, as timber is thinner than floorboards.

Expect to pay around £70 for the hire of a floor sander and edge sander for a weekend. Sanding discs and sheets will cost around £2 each.

Sanding is noisy so it's advisable to work during the day otherwise you may upset your neighbours. Make sure you sand the whole floor including the skirting board edges and the corners. Once you're done, clean up thoroughly because you don't want to coat the new look floor with a mix of varnish and sawdust!

It's essential the boards be sealed with either a clear wood finish or paint. Choose a quick-drying acrylic floor varnish if you want to keep the natural grain of the timber visible and use a brush or a small foam roller to apply at least two coats (three for hardwearing areas such as hallways).

You can change the wood colour of the sanded boards with a timber stain. Apply this over the whole floor, working quickly up and down each board and seal with varnish. It's best to start varnishing the floor in the furthest corner of the room from the door and work back to the door. Leave to dry overnight.

Vinyl floors
Best For Bathrooms and kitchens

Vinyl can look great, it's tough, wipes clean, is warm underfoot and can reduce noise, and that's especially useful in children's rooms. There's a huge range of patterns available on rolls and tiles. You can opt for an authentic wood block pattern, marble effect, bright colours or soft pastels.

Vinyl sheet comes as two, three or 4m widths, from 1.4mm to 3mm thick. Thinner sheet and tile flooring is harder on the feet but is long-lasting. Cushioned vinyl is thicker and more comfortable but can be damaged by heavy wear. Lino is a solid sheet flooring similar to vinyl but much more difficult to lay, so make sure you choose wisely.

Do remember that it's quite soft and any uneven areas underneath will soon show through and spoil the appearance. Cover your floorboards with hardboard. Bring the hardboard sheets into the room and brush a litre of water over the rough side of each. Leave for 24 hours, then lay the sheets across the floorboards, staggering the joints and fixing with panel pins every 100mm around the edge and at 150mm centres in the middle.

Make sure the nail heads are flush with the hardboard surface. For concrete floors, check there is a damp-proof membrane and screed compound to fill any holes and provide a smooth surface for the vinyl.

Measure the room carefully, including any alcoves. Remember that you will need to allow for trimming.

It is sometimes easier to lay the sheet out and draw the measurements onto the sheet, allowing at least 100mm overlap all around. However, if you do this, double check all your measurements and make sure you allow for any walls that are not true.

Vinyl is easy to cut and easier to work with if warm, so turning on the central heating for a few hours will help. Vacuum the floor thoroughly and take off your shoes to reduce the chances of grit being trapped under the vinyl and showing through later.

Unroll the sheet of vinyl and lay it against the longest straight wall in the room. There should be around 100mm of flooring overlapping this wall. Adjust so that any pattern is parallel with the wall.

Using a soft broom, sweep the vinyl flat, working out any air bubbles. Make cuts in from the edge of the vinyl so that the sheet lies as flat as possible in the alcoves and around corners. At internal corners, press the vinyl firmly into the corners and cut vertically downwards. Trim the waste from each side of this line to form a V-shape until the flooring fits into the corner. At external corners, cut from the point of the corner out towards the edge at a 45 degree angle to give yourself enough to trim in both directions.

Now, with the vinyl only a little oversized, work around the edge of the room, pressing a steel straight edge against the vinyl into joints between the wall and the skirting. Cut the remaining waste strip of vinyl to give an exact fit.

Next fix the vinyl to the floor at doorways with double-sided tape. It is also worth fitting a threshold strip across the doorway to protect the edge of the sheet. Wait at least a week before washing tiles or sheet vinyl that's been stuck down. For a neat finish, take off kitchen unit plinths and slide the sheet underneath. You may need to plane a few millimetres from the underneath of the boards to re-fit.

6 rules for safety Always follow the safety advice provided with hired equipment

Always read and OBEY instructions Do not take short cuts Be careful with sharp tools, especially knives Always cut away from your body Use protective clothing, especially when sanding Ventilate rooms when varnishing

Carpet
Best For Lounges, halls, dining rooms and bedrooms

It's not too difficult to carpet a small to medium-sized room. Try to buy the best carpet you can afford, especially in hardwearing areas such as halls and stairs. For large areas that need carpet lengths joined edge to edge, a carpet fitter will probably make a neater job. Because of their shape, halls, stairs and landings are other areas best left to the experts.

Before you lay the carpet, the floor must be smooth and level. If you have floorboards, lay hardboard sheets over the top and screw down to make a smooth flat surface.

You will need a sharp stanley type knife and a room empty of furniture. If you are fitting a carpet with a separate underlay you may need to put gripper rods around the edges of the room, the angled points should be facing the skirting board. Leave about 1/4 in gap between the gripper and the skirting board. In doorways, use door strip instead of gripper rod.

Fit the underlay up to the gripper rod laying the rubber side face down to the floor. Lay the carpet in the room with the carpet needing to be trimmed along all of its edges. Make the carpet flat ironing out any air pockets and creases with a roller.

Only once the carpet is flat can you start cutting it to fit. Trim the carpet to within a couple of inches all the way around the room. Then leave a 1/4 in overlap all the way around the room. This can be folded at the back of the gripper or pressed against the skirting board to give a neat edge..

Laminate
Best For Lounges, halls, and dining rooms

Laminate floors are hardwearing, require low maintenance and complement any style of home. They are ideal for all ground floor living areas but avoid in bathrooms and kitchens.

Laminate can be scratched by grit, so fit a doormat in a hallway and always brush up loose dirt. It's noisier than soft flooring so you may want to use an underlay.

A firm, level base is essential before you put down a laminate floor. Fill any cracks and holes in a concrete floor with mortar. Allow to dry overnight, then cover with a polythene damp-proof membrane to stop any moisture damaging the new boards.

Cover old, uneven floorboards with hardboard. Brush a litre of water over the rough side of each sheet and leave for 24 hours. Lay the sheets across the floorboards, staggering the joints and fixing with panel pins every 100mm around the edge and at 150mm spacing in the middle. Leave the opened packs of flooring in the room for at least 24 hours so that the boards can acclimatise.

Lay laminate boards in the same direction as the longest straight wall. In a square room, lay the boards in the direction of incoming light. Where the laminate meets the edge of the room, you can either take off the skirting boards and replace them on top or add timber mouldings to hide the edges of the new floor.

If your longest wall is not straight, you'll need to scribe the boards to fit. Loose-lay a row of boards so that they run straight and sit just touching the most prominent part of the wall.

Cut a small block of wood the width of the largest part of the gap. Now, without moving the boards, hold a pencil against the block and slide them along the wall marking a line on the boards. You will have an exact profile of the wall marked and can cut the boards accordingly using an electric jigsaw.

Now position the spacers as previously described and lay the first row. The ends of the boards are tongued and grooved, and are joined by squeezing a bead of glue along the top of the tongue and groove. You will probably need to cut the last board of the row to fit. Mark it with a try square, and saw with the finished surface facing up. This way, you are less likely to splinter the surface. Begin the second row, starting with the off-cut of the board used at the end of the first row.

Make holes for heating pipes by marking the position of the pipe on the board to be laid. Drill a hole about 5mm larger in diameter than the pipe. Make two angled saw cuts from the edge of the board to the sides of the drilled hole. Fit the board and carefully glue the small off-cut wedge behind the pipe.

If the last row of boards needs to be cut, measure the gap between the boards and the wall, deduct 10mm and saw the boards lengthways to fit. Glue the joints and force into place with the fitting tool. Finally, fit the scribed boards. Either replace the skirting board or fix a decorative moulding over the expansion gap around the edge of the floor. Pin the moulding to the skirting board and paint or varnish.

Stone and tiles

Newly quarried and reclaimed stone continues to grow in popularity and is a classic choice for hallways, kitchens and conservatories. Finishes vary dramatically from rustic surfaces to chic, polished slabs, ensuring there is a style and colour to suit every type of decor.

The main contenders include slate, available in a surprising number of colours and the least expensive option; limestone whose pale textured surface can be veined and mottled with fossils; and marble which when polished conjures up opulent hotel living.

Although it can be rather expensive and must be laid by a professional, a stone floor will last a lifetime, with the majority of finishes only requiring regular re-sealing to ensure a mop clean surface. However, stone can be hard underfoot and without underfloor heating, can be cold, too.

Ceramic tiles are hard to beat in wet areas and the range of colours, styles, sizes and faux finishes is almost endless. They're also hardwearing, impervious to water, easy to clean and cater to every budget. As with stone, ceramic can be rather hard and cold underfoot and anything dropped on them is almost guaranteed to break.

Terracotta tiles are popular for the more rustic kitchen and conservatory, and are warmer underfoot than ceramic but they may require sealing to prevent staining.

All tiles can be laid by a competent DIYer, but if in doubt call in the professionals.

Using tiles and stone around the home

Hardwearing stone and ceramic tiles work a treat in kitchens, hallways and utilities. Unless your are prepared to re-inforce your sub floor, heavy stone floors are best restricted to ground level. For a hardwearing, waterproof and stain-resistant stone, use inexpensive slate in halls and kitchens. Restrict small tiles or mosaics to smaller rooms such as bathrooms, as they can appear too busy and overpowering in a large space. Busy families may wish to avoid limestone as it can be a very porous, high maintenance option. Opt for ceramic faux finishes instead. Tumbled stone or matt and textured tiles are far less slippery than their polished or gloss counterparts and a wiser choice in the bathroom.