Home Improvement: Tips on Choosing a Room's Finishing Touches

Floor and wall coverings, window and door trim, and lighting will all affect the look and style of your new room. Also, floor covering and lighting are two major factors that establish the room's comfort and practicality.

Floor Coverings

You can choose from many materials, styles, and colors of floor covering. Here are some popular floor choices and some factors to consider when you shop for flooring:

(a) Wood - Wood adds warmth and a feeling of permanence to any room, and it will last a lifetime. If you need a strong linear design in your flooring, install hardwood or manufactured strips or planks. Parquet creates geometric designs.

(b) Resilient and Laminate Materials - These sheet and tile materials combine countless design styles with easy installation. Resilients give, so they resist permanent dents; laminates provide a harder surface.

(c) Ceramic Tile - Tile comes in many sizes, colors, textures. It is hard and durable. Its weight makes it less suitable for attics, but it can be installed in a bonus room if the floor is strong enough. It's ideal for basements.

(d) Carpet - Carpet muffles sound and is the most comfortable material underfoot. Sold in many colors, textures, and patterns, carpet will suit any room and any style.

Wall Coverings

Wallboard (drywall) - the most common wall surface found in today's homes - is typically painted. But painting is not the only wall covering choice available. Wallpaper - alone or combined with paint - presents many decorating possibilities.

Walls and ceilings are often textured by either spraying or rolling on heavy-bodied material to make a rough surface. Wood paneling - solid boards or sheet materials - brings warmth and beauty to a room, and its installation (generally over wallboard) requires only basic carpentry tools and skills. Tile is a popular bathroom wall covering.

Offices, hobby rooms, and other special-purpose rooms often call for something different in wall covering. For instance, bulletin-board material or perforated hardboard can go in work areas or mirrors can cover one wall of an exercise room.

Your Lighting Plan

Well-planned lighting illuminates and enchants a space. Lighting needed for a room includes general illumination, task lighting, and accent lighting. Balancing the three kinds enhances the beauty and usefulness of a room.

(a) General illumination provides safety and convenience and establishes the overall mood of a room. Choose the location of new windows and indirect lighting fixtures (globe fixtures, recessed ceiling lights, wall sconces, or floor-mounted spotlights) so they provide warm, even light over large areas of the room.

(b) Task lighting shines on specific work or reading areas. Spotlights, track lights, wall-mounted fluorescent fixtures, lamps, or recessed ceiling fixtures focus the light on desks, countertops, or other activity areas.

(c) Accent lighting is decorative. Aim recessed ceiling spotlights or sconces at accents - plants, pictures, architectural objects or features of the room - to enhance their effect.

Trim Work

Trim and molding hide minor gaps and imperfections at joints and around doors and windows. They also contribute to the style of a room. Some popular moldings:

(a) Picture-frame molding - with its straight lines and mitered corners - provides a simple complement to modern design schemes.

(b) Butted-head trim is easy to install and projects an arts-and-crafts feeling.

(c) Cabinet-head casing - a variation of the butted-head style - adds a small trim piece at the top of the casing.

(d) Corner blocks originated in the Victorian era. Their elaborate designs are well-suited to formal styles.