Stones Or Rugs? | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

Wall to wall carpet is slowly disappearing from homes and I am very happy.  Smelly, unhygienic wall to wall carpet has never been one of my favorite items for home décor. I have seen horrific carpeted bathrooms and laundry rooms or foyer that made me cringe every time. I am glad all of that nonsense is going away. My title asks a question stones or rugs, referring to a floor of any room. This is not a hard choice, as people know what they like most of the time. If it was up to me, I would never ever propose area rugs, and wall to wall carpet. The dust and germs under the shoes brought in the house from the street, or even the dead skin under bare feet, are two sufficient facts to decide against it and yet people still ask for carpet and rugs. The health of a room depends much on the cleanability of each item to avoid dust mites from making their nest everywhere and create allergies.

Stones or rugs are two different looks with two different textures. A stone floor is washable with soap and water, stays clean and fresh, keeps the room cool in the summer heat and lasts forever. One way to muffle the echo when a room is large like a salon or a cave is to decorate it with upholstered furniture, pillows, throws, wallpaper and a lot of wood accessories. A large room carpeted from wall to wall is just a larger opportunities for dust mites to reproduce and multiply. A colder climate area would be the exception to my rules and I would opt for a rug, but not a carpet. I would place an area rug only in strategic places such as bedrooms, living rooms, or home office, just to add some warmth to the room.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

 

New Wave Rug - Grandinroad

New Wave Rug – Grandinroad

New Waves rug – Hand tufted, 100% Chinese wool with a beautiful sheen that brings a bit of light on a grey floor.

 

Heather Rug - Grandinroad

Heather Rug – Grandinroad

Heather rug – The description says: dramatic, vibrant, “pretty-but-edgy” floral design. Large flowers are all the rage today, on wallpapers and on rugs, don’t be afraid of looking at bold flowers, after a while the eyes get accustomed and space becomes joyful.

Jules Rug - Grandinroad

Jules Rug – Grandinroad

Jules rug – Colorful abstract puts art on the floor.

 

Ellis Rug - Grandinroad

Ellis Rug – Grandinroad

Ellis – Traditional rug design fits anywhere, even in a modern setting.

(All rugs are from Grandinroad)

Marble Pebbles and Distressed Wood Floor - Valentina Interiors & Designs

Marble Pebbles and Distressed Wood Floor -Valentina Interiors & Designs

 

My question, however, is a different one. If the floor is created new, it is original and outside the box, made interesting to look at, the room is small (I doubt the stone floor creates an echo in a small room), what is the reason to cover it with a rug? This is the new floor I created for a guest room in a client’s home. It’s made of distressed wood and sinuous shaped marble pebbles by the French door leading to the garden. My preference would be to leave the floor naked as part of the furniture, my client prefers to have a rug and those above are my choices of a rug. If we must cover a new floor, let’s do it with colors.

We are at the beginning of the year, there is nothing going on out there in January, make changes now. Happy New Year.  Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com 

 

Copyright © 2019 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

 


Valentina In StudioValentina Cirasola
transforms and creates spaces realizing people’s dreams in homes, offices, interiors, and exteriors. She infuses your everyday living with a certain luxury without taking away a comfortable living. Valentina is well-known for bringing originality on any project and for thinking outside the box. Her interiors are not made with cookie cutters, only follow client’s inspiration, lifestyle, and personality. She offers online design consultations through Skype or Zoom and the traditional in-house consultations, helping people with their design challenge anywhere in the world. She is the author of four books.
The latest newly published book is ©The Road To Top Of The World.
https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8
All books are available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

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Step On Colors, Vibrate Your Day | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

Oh, how many times I see homes made with a cookie cutter!!! I know, if a person has something, his/her friends feel they must have it too; if some magazine says hardwood floor is in style, everybody will have hardwood floor. It is called socio-acceptance. Some people think if they have the same things everybody else have, or look the same as everybody else, they are cool!

Sometimes ago, a friend asked me if a kitchen granite counter was still in fashion and if it was a yes, how long I foresaw it to stay in fashion. What a question? My answer was to make the kitchen counter in a stone or material she liked and not in a stone every kitchen from California to New York has.

The same I can say for floor covering. Wall to wall carpet is not hygienic. You have no idea what we find when we remove carpets during a remodeling. No wonder people are often sick, breathing all that stuff collected underneath the carpet affects your health. Real hardwood floor requires maintenance to keep it beautiful for long time. Engineered wood (man-made products) is cheap and fake, but affordable. Linoleum has improved but it is linoleum. Not very often alternative solutions come up and the world is full of new ideas.
Here I have solutions for stones and hardwood with attractive and stunning layouts, colorful tiles with geometric designs, stenciled floor and cement tiles, which are immensely overlooked.

Vietri Italian tiles featured here by Romeo Cuomo https://www.facebook.com/romeo.cuomo
You might just need a small space to brighten up or to make an impression where you can keep expenses down and what an impression it will be!
If you can spend a little more for an upscale flooring that will add character to your home why not using imagination? Do it, your soul will like it and your day will vibrate. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Copyright © 2015 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Val:FarfalleStampValentina Cirasola transforms and creates spaces realizing people’s dreams in homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. She infuses your everyday living with a certain luxury without taking away a comfortable living. 
She offers design consultations on-line through Skype and the traditional in-house consultations, helping people with their design challenge any where in the world. She is the author of three books, all-available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Floors To Trample and Knocks You Out With Warmth | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

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What do you think of the hardwood floor that looks like a chopping block? Do you like to see short wood planks in light and dark coloration laid-out in the chopping block fashion? I don’t. There is nothing elegant about it. The look of a kitchen should stay on the kitchen counter.
A few days ago, I was looking at an Italian fashion magazine, but I could not help noticing more the hardwood floor than the clothing. Yes, the clothing were attractive, but the floor they were casually thrown on was sexy, warm, inviting, onto which the fashion clothing seemed even more interesting in their casual lack of concern. The picture to me spoke about the hardwood floor, as if the wearer had trusted the beautiful hardwood floor to take a gentle care of her precious jewelry and the fancy garment.

Italian floors have been the most remarkable floors in history. Italian people like to trample on beauty because what is under their feet is as important as what they wear on their feet. Floors in Italian homes can be very decorated, or have an understated elegance, both ways will affect and determine the ambiance of a home. It is a common practice to blend and mix various wood species to create attractive pattern designs, which at times do not follow any direction and at times will take the eye in a state of ecstatic admiration.

Hardwood floor focus on the emotion it evokes and the dreams that surrounds the wood itself. Designed hardwood floors are for sitting on, for rolling while playing and to allow us to be enveloped by its natural warmth. Cushions, crackling fireplace, a glass of wine, scented candles, a good company with an elegant music and I have just created a relaxed glamour right on the hardwood floor.

Another common practice is to design a floor with marble or tiles inserted in the hardwood as accents, but the classic and long-lived solution remains the mixture of intricate designs of stones communicating beautifully with each other, both in contemporary and classic forms. Mosaics made of various stones and wood inlays are not only for churches and museums, but they are vastly appreciated in most homes in Italy.

Travertine and tumble marble cover the floor of my house in Italy. Although these are kind of warm stones, in super hot days this type of stones can provide an instant pleasurable refreshment and I love to roll on the floor. As a kid I loved to go down the stone stairs not with my feet walking down, but with my butt sitting and feeling the steps one by one until I reached the floor. I was a little rascal and…. still I am in so many ways.

The floor setters in Italy are artists of their own kind. Being exposed for centuries to beautiful floors they are a delight to work with, they are original and knowledgeable and they are the best people to ask for suggestions when clients have no idea of how to compose a floor. As a designer, I like to guide them around my design concept when I compose certain hard surfaces, but their expertise is of a superior quality that not much guidance is needed once the designs is laid out on paper.

(Floor left: Romeo Cuomo)

To create a composition of marble with various stones to me is a divertissement.
Any area of a home can do without area rugs and be defined with a stone design instead, as in photo. It will save on rug cleaning expenses and the room will be more hygienically breathable. Stones only need water and mild soap and they will be dressed again.

Find this beautiful hand painted tiles flooring shown here at Officina Ceramica in Italy: http://www.officinaceramica.com

Whether you are thinking of hardwood floor, or stone floor and whether it will be installed in a home on the Amalfi Coast, Côte d’Azur, California, or any urban flat in the world, I will suggest to employ any material intelligently, create the beauty even under your feet. Beauty and luxury have a vital role to play in the most intimate and important moment of a person’s life.
Originally designed hard surfaces will endure the test of time, will add value to your home and above all will continue your dream and legacy, as we still dream today when visiting historic homes and buildings around the world.

If you are ready to step onto dreamy flooring and if you ready to invest into long-term beauty, I am here to help you. Should anything like this strike your fancy, I would like to be the designer to provide you with these special solutions ready and available to me. Ciao,
Valentina

http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Copyright © 2010 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

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Valentina Cirasola has been in business as a designer since 1990. She has helped a variegated group of fun people realizing their dreams with homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. She is a designer well-known to bring originality to people’s homes. As an Italian designer and true to her origins, she provides only the best workmanship and design solutions. Check out her books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w


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