This post has been sponsored by Beautifully Responsible® Resilient Flooring but all opinions are entirely my own.
As we get ready to finally move into our brand new primary bedroom and share all of the design and decor details we’ve been cooking up for the finished space, I thought I’d update you guys on one of my favorite design choices in our home overall that we not only carried into the new space, but that we feel has completely enhanced our quality of life (and saved our sanity) over the years, especially now that our family has grown by one crazy pup an adorably busy toddler – our luxury vinyl plank flooring. We’ll show you more of the space in the coming weeks, but for now, here’s a little sneaky peek at how it turned out!
In case you’re not up to speed on our flooring journey (you can read all about how and why we chose our flooring here), about five or six years ago we updated all of the flooring throughout our home after a painstakingly long process hemming and hawing over the infinite flooring choices that exist out there in the universe. Talk about overwhelming! We knew our active, busy lifestyle would required the perfect marriage between form and function, and much to my surprise after knowing next to nothing about this type of flooring before I dove into our flooring search, we landed on a beautiful, wood-like resilient flooring that we’re still absolutely loving years later. So much so that when our builder asked us to choose flooring for our new primary bedroom and closet, we didn’t even hesitate. We knew right away that our resilient flooring would be one of the best design decisions we would make for the new space!
When I last wrote about our home’s flooring when I was pregnant, I could have never known just how much it would put to the test when we had our first child and adopted a cattle dog puppy basically at the same time. Since writing that post, our flooring has seen some things. Lots of things. Thankfully, our flooring has not only survived, but thrived through the chaos and it’s honestly one of those really great design decisions that we made years ago that continues to bring us joy years later.
Not sure what the heck resilient flooring is or why it’s awesome? Well first, I always tell people to visit BeautifullyResponsible.com to learn more because it’s such a deep well of helpful information when you’re searching for the perfect flooring for your family’s home and looking for where you can buy near you. But let me hit you with the highlights: Resilient flooring is a category of flooring products, just like hardwood or carpet. It gets its name from its ability to “give” under the impact of footsteps and then spring back into shape. It’s built to endure whatever challenges life throws at it, and man oh man has our household thrown some challenges its way as of late! I’m pretty sure the other day Elvis dragged an entire bush, yes BUSH, in from the backyard through the doggy door, it’s branches scraping across the floor along the way. Was there a single scratch to be seen on our floors after? Nope, not a one. See, I told you it was a sanity saver!
So what kinds of flooring products are included in the resilient flooring category? Think engineered tile, luxury vinyl tile, luxury vinyl plank with rigid core, rubber, vinyl sheet and woven design flooring. All manufactured with sustainability, wellbeing and performance in mind. So not only is resilient flooring beautifully made, but it’s beautifully responsible, too, which you know we love.
In our case, luxury vinyl plank with rigid core was perfect for not only our design sensibilities, but our lifestyle and our values. As a family who lives in a pretty cozy little ranch cottage, there’s hardly an inch of our flooring that doesn’t get touched by me, Chris, our pup Elvis, our toddler Emmet or our guests on a daily basis, and not only are our floors just as beautiful as they were the day we installed them, but they’ve proven to be one of the most durable and easy-to-maintain elements of our home’s design. They also just feel great under our feet and are incredibly quiet when we (and that wild dog of ours) walk around on them, which we didn’t realize would be such a game-changer when it came to our flooring.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be singing our flooring’s praises until the end of time, but if you’re still wondering why it’s such an awesome option for a busy household like ours, let’s dive into all the reasons I love it even more now than when we originally chose it, and why I had to have it in our new bedroom and closet:
Durability
As mentioned, durability was one of our top requirements when we chose our flooring originally, and it’s even more important to us now that we have a very spunky “teenage” pup and an equally spunky toddler. Listen, I’m going to be honest and tell you guys that in the last 1.5 years since we adopted our pup Elvis and Emmet came into the world, our house has become a tornado of all out mayhem, and I’d say that our floors probably bear the brunt of most of that action. Endless fetch sessions and tiny dog nails skittering across the floor. More spills, of all kinds, than I can count. A toddler whacking his plastic, child-sized golf club against every inch of flooring we have. Tug of war… with both children. Furniture getting dragged and pushed to and fro. And all manner of other kinds of chaos that were our flooring not as strong and durable as it is, I may have already lost my mind. When we hunted for our flooring originally we wanted something we could live in and on, and clean just as easily as we get it dirty. And that’s even more important to us now. Our floors have advanced scratch protection and resistance to the harshest of harsh stains, they stand up to spills so incredibly effortlessly (I don’t even bat an eyelash when something spills on our floors. Seriously.) and unlike so many other kinds of flooring that’s wood or has a wood look, can be used in traditionally wet areas like bathrooms and mudrooms. So you know this is tough stuff. Our resilient flooring throughout our entire house still looks brand spankin’ new all these years later, and never once have I had to stress about a spill, scratch, or any other scary accident. It’s magical!
Sustainability
Ok ok, we get that sustainability night not be on your radar when you’re making a flooring choice for your home, but check this out: Beautifully Responsible® member brands and their resilient flooring products work to remove the need to harvest less-abundant natural resources by combining highly abundant natural ingredients (limestone, for example) with synthetic materials (like vinyl) to create long-lasting, highly durable, nature-inspired designs. Improving efficiency in manufacturing means less greenhouse gases are emitted in the process, and less carbon is “embodied” within the product. They’re also constantly finding new solutions to reduce energy, water, and material waste; recycling unused, factory-made material back into products. How amazing is that?
Beauty
We’re not completely immune to the charms of pretty floors, ya know? Looks are usually at the top of any typical homeowners list of considerations, and we were no exception! Our flooring is absolutely beautiful. It has a very realistic, wood-like look and feel, without all the fussiness of wood, which was so important to us. If you’re not familiar with the world of luxury vinyl plank with rigid core (which I certainly wasn’t before I was introduced to it during our flooring search), don’t let the word vinyl freak you out. It’s come a long way from the vinyl flooring of yesteryear. And even in the years since we installed our resilient flooring, the offerings just keep getting better and more beautiful! Even when I look at these snaps of our flooring in the new bedroom, it still looks almost exactly like real wood to me!
Wellbeing & Indoor Air Quality
Now that Emmet’s here, I’m so glad that we had the foresight to take indoor air quality and the toxicity of the materials used to manufacture flooring products into consideration during our flooring search and decided to make finding a non-toxic product a priority. It makes us feel so good, especially now that we’re parents, that our resilient flooring meets applicable third-party certification standards for contributing to good indoor air quality and/or being free from hazardous substances like formaldehyde. What’s more, resilient flooring is made with advanced wear layers that make it easy to clean and maintain without the need for harsh chemicals. Just think about how much we all make contact with our flooring every day. Its a LOT! And in our case we’re not just walking on it, we’re rolling around or crawling on it, as are our pup and our toddler. And we plan on carrying on with reckless abandon in our puppy and kiddo floor play time when we’re in our new bedroom!
Affordability
Though not necessarily our top priority originally (we knew we’d be investing in our flooring and were prepared for that), as we’ve continued to remodel and add new spaces to our home, we’ve come to realize that the affordability of the flooring product we use in our home continues to make our home improvement projects over the years much more approachable and affordable. If we were always spending huge chunks of our home improvement project budgets on just the flooring we needed to match, it would definitely give us pause. Over time, the affordability of our flooring has been such a value add for us!
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