However careful and precise you are in decorating your home, there will be an inevitable paint spill or collection of wayward dust. For that reason, you should take steps to prevent any of these reaching your carpets or wood flooring. There is a huge market of protective films, sheets and tapes to help guard your flooring. Preparation is the key; having these protective measures in place to start with will avoid costly clean-up jobs afterwards.

Traditionally you would just throw a few large dust sheets over your floor and furniture and hope for the best when it came to paint spills, but there are so many options to ensure you have no unhappy accidents whilst renovating your home. Wood flooring, especially that real wood flooring you've invested in, needs particular attention.

Carpets are particularly prone to collecting dust, and so it is imperative that you try and limit the amount of dust able to collect there. This means putting down dust sheets and fixing them in place with heavy duty tape to seal them down. Don't be overwhelmed by the wide selection of different dust sheets - they have varying purposes. You can now buy staircase dust sheets, laminated dust sheets (to really ensure spills don't seep through) and even zipped door dust sheets to prevent dust getting through to other rooms.

There is a huge variety of protective films for hard wood and carpeted floors. These are temporary, self-adhesive films that cover the floor from any splashes of paint or varnishes as you redecorate. They can be laid for up to four weeks and don't leave any residue. You can purchase some at decorating-supplies.co.uk. Films like these can be more practical to protect wood and laminate flooring whilst being easy to manoeuvre over. Dust sheets can be a bit of a trip hazard when not fixed down.

Hardwood and laminate flooring require special protection when redecorating - and not just from painting. Moving furniture in or out of the room is essential - If it's not in there, it can't be damaged, and will make it easier for you to move around the room. But doing so can leave marks. To avoid scraping flooring you can purchase glider pads. In the long term, you might want to affix furniture protector pads, which you can purchase from expert flooring suppliers like ourselves.

Here's our step-by-step guide to setting up your room in order to protect your flooring:

• Remove all furniture that you can, using gliders or protector pads if on wood floors.
• Lay down and properly secure whichever protection you are using dust sheets or film.
• Ensure edges are taped up properly, especially where walls meet wood flooring, masking tape or duct tape can do this well remember to make sure these are all straight (use a spirit level if necessary!).
• Carry out painting and work on walls (any drilling etc.)
• Hoover up dust and clean up any spills before removing protective sheets or tape.