Flooring for living rooms
Choosing flooring for any room in your home involves consideration of the overall style of the house. However, this is even more apparent in the living room, which is usually a central room in the home. Often one of the busiest and most open spaces in the home, living rooms are where family and friends gather to relax or socialise.
How often you entertain guests, and whether you have children or pets, is going to inform how much wear and tear your floors can expect and how durable they need to be.
Although carpet has traditionally been a favourite living room flooring choice, today hard surface materials such as wood, rigid LVT, and laminate are often the preferred choice. These flooring materials are all much easier to clean and maintain than carpet, and more resistant to stains. They're also available in a massive range of designs, styles, colours and textures, giving you the freedom to play with a variety of living room flooring ideas.
Although carpet has traditionally been a favourite living room flooring choice, today hard surface materials such as wood, rigid LVT, and laminate are often the preferred choice. These flooring materials are all much easier to clean and maintain than carpet, and more resistant to stains. They're also available in a massive range of designs, styles, colours and textures, giving you the freedom to play with a variety of living room flooring ideas.
What’s the best flooring for living rooms?
The best flooring for the living room is a floor that beautifully sets the stage for your chosen design style. Everything from the colour, pattern, texture and style of your floors, will influence the ambience of the room. Whether you want a traditional or contemporary look, choosing the right flooring will help you to create an inviting and welcoming space.
In addition to aesthetics, there are a few practical considerations. Living room flooring should be durable, to withstand a relatively constant stream of traffic, comfortable and warm underfoot, and easy to clean and maintain. There are many possible flooring options that meet these criteria, including carpet, solid and engineered wood, vinyl, laminate, tile and stone. Ultimately, homeowners need to choose a floor that best fits their needs in terms of functionality, design, and budget.
Living room styles and inspiration
With so many different flooring options well suited to the living room, the range of styles and designs available are almost limitless. Whether your style is classic or contemporary, relaxed or formal, your living room should be an inviting and comfortable space where you enjoy spending time alone or with friends and family.
To help guide your design and style decisions, ask yourself a few basic questions. What’s the overall style of your home? How big is your living room? How busy will it be? What’s your budget? With clarity on the overall style of your home, the type of functionality you’ll require, and how much you can afford to spend, it becomes easier to find a living room style perfectly suited to your needs. You can then start thinking about colours, furniture, area rugs, art, and lighting – all of the details that add to the style of your living room.
Browse our inspiration pages to become better acquainted with your general design style preferences. Here you’ll find some great decorating and flooring ideas as well as advice on how to pull together all the different elements to create the perfect living room that fits both your design style and lifestyle.
Vinyl in the living room
Vinyl has several advantages that make it an excellent option for your living room floor. It's a highly durable material that is resistant to scratches, scuffs and moisture. It's easy to install and maintain, comfortable and quiet underfoot, and available in an almost limitless range of colours and designs. Vinyl is also relatively affordable when compared to other flooring options, such as solid and engineered hardwood, ceramic tiles and stone. These qualities make vinyl a popular living room flooring choice with a range of homeowners. In particular, homeowners looking for an affordable floor that they can install themselves, and who want the flexibility to choose from a range of design and style options. It's also an excellent option for budget-savvy homeowners who want a wood-look floor but without the premium price tag of real wood flooring.
At Tarkett, we offer a complete range of quality vinyl floors in a wide variety of designs, colours and styles, from wood, tile, stone to stunning graphic effects. And all our vinyl floors, both our luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and vinyl roll (also known as sheet vinyl) ranges, are treated with a special PUR surface treatment. This provides extreme protection and makes them even more durable and resistant to scratches or stains, making our vinyl flooring perfect for living rooms at the centre of busy family homes.
Wood in the living room
Wood floors are beautiful and stylish. They offer a timeless look and bring natural warmth to living rooms. They’re warm underfoot making them comfortable to walk on, especially when compared to ceramic or porcelain tiles. Area rugs can also be used to add warmth and texture, and wood floors are compatible with underfloor heating systems if extra warmth is needed.
Best of all, wood is also a natural material that is sustainably sourced and produced. This makes wood one of the more expensive types of living room flooring, but it also makes it one of the more attractive and durable flooring options. The thick and dense construction of wooden planks means that you can sand them down and refinish them when they start to show signs of wear. As a result, wood floors can last for decades, depending on their quality and how well they’re proactively maintained.
Laminate in the living room
For homeowners looking for a wood-like finish for their living room floor but find the pricing of hardwood out of reach, laminate offers an attractive and affordable alternative. It’s relatively inexpensive when compared with hardwood flooring. However, like vinyl flooring, it can perfectly mimic the look of natural flooring materials such as wood, as well as other natural materials such as tile and stone.
Higher quality laminate flooring is also very durable. The high-density core board offers excellent resistance, which means that laminate floors can withstand heavy living room furniture without denting. Laminate also has a durable top layer that protects the surface against scratching and fading, which makes laminate well adapted for living rooms where there’s high-traffic and also homes with pets.