Tread carefully: alternative flooring

It seems strange that we can agonise over the colour of walls and the design of the sofa, but when it comes to the floors we seem to run out of imagination. Most of us either sand the boards or choose a shade for the carpet and leave it at that.

There are thousands of flooring choices, from rubber and leather to vinyl and even recycled aluminium and resin. Annabelle Filer of the surfacing company SCIN is keen for us to think more imaginatively about the most widely used surface in the house. "There's nothing wrong with wooden floorboards, but there are so many other things you can choose. Wooden floors and brown leather sofas signify good taste and will never go out of fashion, but you can be more imaginative," she says.

Filer has a couple of thousand choices on her website, Scin, but is aiming for 6,000 options. She calls the site the "little black book" of materials, surfaces and finishes. And, as you can imagine, her homes, in London and Kent, and her studio, are all areas where she tries out ideas from leather to feather, via painted slate and, yes, carpet.

"Carpet isn't boring, but there are other ways of dealing with it. We are selling a lot of black berber, which has a large loop, but instead of fitting it, you can just buy a large piece, have the edges whipped and lay it so that it covers the whole room as a giant rug.

"That way, you can take it with you when you move, you can take it to another room and you can take it outside for cleaning. It's black – very practical – and has tiny grey and brown flecks in it, so it's not a harsh colour at all."

Filer does not advocate changing your decor to suit a prevailing fashion, and is opposed to transporting woods around the world to match a trend. "I am all for surfaces that last a long time. I don't go with this idea of trend and fashion that means you will want to rip it out and start again in a year's time. It's not sustainable, it's not environmentally friendly, and it's expensive."

With that in mind, Filer has sourced the perfect flooring for her London kitchen. Made from screen-printed slate, the surface gradually wears to reveal a different pattern. "I have had this down for about 18 months, and the gold is just beginning to wear off to reveal a damask pattern. It's a bit like an advent calendar. I know there are five layers and one of them is a Pac-Man design, but I don't know when it will emerge. It's playful, but still a natural material."

Natural materials are increasingly important in homes in the drive for sustainability. Of course, the main natural product is wood. Here, too, Filer has strong opinions; it should be indigenous.

"Bamboo is lovely but it's come from halfway around the world. We should be using chestnut and elm, which come from here, are responsibly harvested and look great in our environment because that is where they are meant to be. Mellow chestnut is a lovely colour.

"Rush matting is another underused product. It is great for bathrooms. In fact, rush matting loves the damp – if you have it in other rooms, you have to spray it a couple of times a month."

Filer is also a fan of recycled materials. Rubber has become more popular in kitchens and bathrooms. She is also looking at creating a domestic surface from recycled polystyrene. "It looks like wood and was originally created as outdoor decking or playground material."

Another relatively new idea is resin. Usually seen in shops and studios, it is practical for the home as it comes in dozens of colours and creates a smooth glossy finish. With a non-slip coating, it is great for a bathroom. Vinyl leatherette is also a practical bathroom choice. Having inherited an avocado bathroom suite in her rented Kent house, Filer covered the floor with cream vinyl tiles, creating a striking green and cream look.

In her bedroom, she has a carpet made from merino wool, which is amazingly soft underfoot. She also raves about a feather carpet (strictly off limits for small children).

Surprisingly, given how rude many interior decorators are about laminate, Filer has no problem with it as long as you use it correctly. "Get a good quality one so that it doesn't chip, and try inlaying some vinyl into it so that it looks a bit like a rug," she suggests.

Other ideas include woven vinyl. This looks like the natural fibre sisal, but is more practical because it is synthetic, so you can have colours such as silver – which fits perfectly with the current passion for all things metallic.

But, of course, Filer is also interested in more unusual coverings. One of her favourites is leather. In her house in Kent, it flows down the stairs as a chocolate brown runner with white painted floorboards either side.

"Leather is a fabulous product for floors because it is so tough and it looks better with age – the more you spill on it the better it gets. We've used cow hide on the stairs. It is from the underbelly of the cow so it's quite soft and we cut it wide and just glued it on as a runner. It's lovely to walk on. It's the perfect material for areas that get a lot of use, like stairs. It's not slippery. It will scratch, but you can rub the marks out or just leave them there as part of the look."

You can also buy leather tiles, which create a sleeker, more modern look, suited to a city flat. These do look better if they are well maintained.

"What you put on the floors, and the walls for that matter, determines how long people want to stay in a room," Filer says. "If your sofa is beautiful but the floors are wrong and the walls are the wrong colour, they will leave. But if the structure of the room is right, it won't matter if the sofa is off."

Quality costs, of course, and if you are choosing something that is going to last a long time, it's worth it. Filer suggests two main ground rules. "First, make sure that the floor is really well prepared. Get a builder in to level it if necessary. You can either have a screed applied or hardboard it, but take the time to do it right.

"My rule of thumb is that you should double the cost of the material to include the laying. So if you choose a material for £30 a metre, assume that it will cost around £60 to lay."

And the second rule is about colour. Filer is in favour of tones that go with our climate. Hot pinks are fine in hot countries, but she suggests softer colours – colours, in fact, that look as if they have been washed out by the rain. And there's no shortage of that.

Scin Studio, 130 Bermondsey Street, London SE1, 020-7357 7574, www.scin.co.uk

The essential contacts

From Annabelle Filer's "little black book"of suppliers:

* For timber supply: www.in-wood.co.uk; 01825 872 150

* For rush matting: www.rushmatters.co.uk; 01234 376 419

* For resin flooring: www.stratum.uk.com; 0870 770 4316

* For nice vinyl: www.plynyl.com

* For almost everything else: www.scin.co.uk; 020-7357 7574

Other useful stores:

* For vinyl: www.harveymaria.co.uk; 0845 680 1231

* For marmoleum and novilux vinyl: www.forbo-flooring.co.uk; 01592 643 111

* www.therubberflooringcompany.co.uk; 0800 849 6386