How important is flooring to a design scheme? What advice would you offer when it comes to all things underfoot?
Flooring is a very important part of any space – it's the foundation upon which we build and place all functional elements and furnishings. Selecting the right flooring can be quite a challenge if it's done at the early stages of a project.
I always select the flooring at quite a late stage in the process, although you may wonder why. The texture, colour and material of the flooring will strongly influence everything, from furniture and wall colours, to interior door colours and finishings.
Therefore, selecting flooring without considering all other details in your interior will limit your options when it comes to those other elements. Let's say we choose dark wood flooring with a reddish nuance for our living room, and later we fall in love with a beautiful wooden table that is light brown with a greyish tone. Suddenly, we have a clash of the same material because of the colour variants.
There are some materials and colours that make life much easier. A light off-white marble flooring will go with almost any material placed on top of it; the same goes for a light white-grey oak floor. As designers, we always seek out a seamless, uniform flooring look. Unfortunately, we can only achieve that with an epoxy resin floor or a perfect zero-joint marble floor, and both options are quite costly. Therefore, my tip is to select tiles or even wooden flooring in big sizes, while carpeting should be always used and installed in rolls not tiles.
A fantastic, cost-effective way to hide an unpleasant old floor is to top it with a good-quality laminate. Pay attention to getting a large skirting in the same finish, which can be fixed on top of your existing skirting. It saves a lot of time. The other advantage is you can also run some lighting or speaker cables behind the skirting and hide them altogether. In bedrooms, there is always the option of a cosy carpet – there is no better feeling than waking up and stepping on a warm carpet instead of a cold tile floor.
Please do not forget the bath mat/rug. My tip is to try out memory foam options. And, if money isn't an issue, combine real marble, ideally bookmatched [the process of matching two or more surfaces so that they mirror each other] with a solid wood floor. There are many combinations possible and the finished product is simply outstanding.
Medy Navani is creative director and founder of Design Haus Medy, www.dhmuae.com; Instagram:
@designhausmedy
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The biog:
Languages: Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, basic Russian
Favourite food: Pizza
Best food on the road: rice
Favourite colour: silver
Favourite bike: Gold Wing, Honda
Favourite biking destination: Canada
THE LIGHT
Director: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Tala Al Deen, Nicolette Krebitz, Lars Eidinger
Rating: 3/5
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
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Saturday's results
Women's third round
- 14-Garbine Muguruza Blanco (Spain) beat Sorana Cirstea (Romania) 6-2, 6-2
- Magdalena Rybarikova (Slovakia) beat Lesia Tsurenko (Ukraine) 6-2, 6-1
- 7-Svetlana Kuznetsova (Russia) beat Polona Hercog (Slovenia) 6-4. 6-0
- Coco Vandeweghe (USA) beat Alison Riske (USA) 6-2, 6-4
- 9-Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) beat 19-Timea Bacsinszky (Switzerland) 3-6, 6-4, 6-1
- Petra Martic (Croatia) beat Zarina Diyas (Kazakhstan) 7-6, 6-1
- Magdalena Rybarikova (Slovakia) beat Lesia Tsurenko (Ukraine) 6-2, 6-1
- 7-Svetlana Kuznetsova (Russia) beat Polona Hercog (Slovenia) 6-4, 6-0
Men's third round
- 13-Grigor Dimitrov (Bulgaria) beat Dudi Sela (Israel) 6-1, 6-1 -- retired
- Sam Queery (United States) beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (France) 6-2, 3-6, 7-6, 1-6, 7-5
- 6-Milos Raonic (Canada) beat 25-Albert Ramos (Spain) 7-6, 6-4, 7-5
- 10-Alexander Zverev (Germany) beat Sebastian Ofner (Austria) 6-4, 6-4, 6-2
- 11-Tomas Berdych (Czech Republic) beat David Ferrer (Spain) 6-3, 6-4, 6-3
- Adrian Mannarino (France) beat 15-Gael Monfils (France) 7-6, 4-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2
FINAL SCORES
Fujairah 130 for 8 in 20 overs
(Sandy Sandeep 29, Hamdan Tahir 26 no, Umair Ali 2-15)
Sharjah 131 for 8 in 19.3 overs
(Kashif Daud 51, Umair Ali 20, Rohan Mustafa 2-17, Sabir Rao 2-26)
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THE BIO
Born: Mukalla, Yemen, 1979
Education: UAE University, Al Ain
Family: Married with two daughters: Asayel, 7, and Sara, 6
Favourite piece of music: Horse Dance by Naseer Shamma
Favourite book: Science and geology
Favourite place to travel to: Washington DC
Best advice you’ve ever been given: If you have a dream, you have to believe it, then you will see it.
THE SPECS
Engine: 3.5-litre V6
Transmission: six-speed manual
Power: 325bhp
Torque: 370Nm
Speed: 0-100km/h 3.9 seconds
Price: Dh230,000
On sale: now