Grey Flooring in Glasgow

Standardising at the scale of a housing association

35.0% of households in Glasgow rent socially, 1st of 151 towns and against 22.5% for Scotland. The rentals guide's advice to standardise is written for anyone who holds more than one unit, and a council or housing association is exactly that kind of landlord. One grey across the stock means that a repair or a change of tenancy does not reopen the question of colour.

Grey or warm oak in Crosshill's villas and older rooms

Historic Scotland and the council describe Crosshill's villas as large, 19th-century and sandstone-built, and an estimated 43% of dwellings in the council area predate 1945 (Scotland: 28%). The comparison of warm wood tones and cool greys is candid about such rooms: warm oak is the cosier, more traditional choice that flatters period features and warms up a cool room.

That does not rule grey out. It means that in a room with its period features intact a grey is a deliberate contrast, and it is worth deciding that on purpose, with a sample laid next to the skirting, rather than by default.

A textured grey in the hall of a flat

68.7% of Glasgow households live in a flat, 1st of 151 towns (Scotland: 34.4%). The hallway of a flat takes the heaviest footfall and the grit, and it often lies directly over a neighbour's bedroom. The flats guide answers that room with a textured rigid vinyl or a matt laminate on a rated underlay.

The door brings the weather in with it. With 30.0 heavy-rain days a year in the town centre against a median of 17.8 for the 151 towns, grit, sand and wet are what a grey vinyl floor meets first, and the cleaning guide ties their amount to where the home stands.

Wear layers for dogs and for spare rooms

Twelve of Glasgow's postcode districts come out at a median of 0.21 dogs per household in the 2015 estimate, where the median of 2,737 districts across Great Britain is 0.41. Where a dog lives, a thicker wear layer on vinyl does the job that texture does on timber, and the dogs guide says a commercial-grade layer in a house with a dog is not overspecifying.

The opposite applies in spare rooms, which are scarce here: 16.1% of households have at least two bedrooms more than they need, against 32.2% for Scotland. A commercial layer in such a room buys nothing, so the second wear layer of a standardised range goes where the traffic is.