Making the Right Design Choice – Part 2

When you’re choosing flooring, narrowing down your choices and making the final decisions can be a real challenge. If you’re concerned about handling this process, let us provide you with a couple of steps to make deciding easier for you.

Studies show that people find it much more difficult to choose from among 30 choices than five or six. If you’re looking at more than six or eight options and it’s hard for you to narrow them down, you can use this next approach to trick your mind into looking at fewer options at a time. Take your final selections and separate them into sets of two. Then, looking only at one set a time; choose one of the two to keep in your stack. Have your salesperson run off with the other ones before you start second-guessing if you have to! By the time you finish, you will have cut the options you’re considering in half. Repeat as necessary until you only have three or four choices left.

If you’ve narrowed down your choices and are still having trouble, it’s time to try decision tactic number two – reverse decision making. Instead of picking the one you want, eliminate the one, or two, or three you don’t want. Of your final choices, one of them will stand out as the one you can’t eliminate. That’s your best choice.

When you get down to the last two choices, look at them both and think about how you would feel if we told you that one of them was discontinued or couldn’t be delivered in time for your project. Sometimes this approach can help you find out what your true preference is.

Remember, all of your selections will look beautiful in your home. Don’t think of this as a source for stress but an opportunity for fun.

For those of you that are more practical in your decision making, you’ll want to check out the Design Resources section of our website. Here, you’ll find helpful tools like our style quiz, how I live quiz, find your color tool and gallery of floors.

For part 1 this series, click here.