Best Flooring for Living Rooms

Carpet, laminate, luxury vinyl, engineered wood, hardwood – how do you choose?

Each type of living room floor offers a different vibe and feeling, and the choice can greatly impact the aesthetics and value-adding properties of your living room.

Keep reading to discover the top living room flooring ideas, comparing aesthetics, comfort, style, and durability to help you make the best choice for your home.

What Flooring is Best for a Living Room?

See our comparisons of the most popular living room floors.

Carpet

Carpet is soft, cosy, and adds warmth to a living room. It generally requires professional installation, but you can find carpets to match all budgets – with cheap carpets and luxury options available.

Advantages: Feels soft to land on, increases insulation, and creates a cosy aesthetic. It’s easy to clean and matches any décor scheme.
Disadvantages: Carpets require professional installation and they need deep cleaning to remove stains.

Laminate

Laminate flooring is one of the most popular floors for a living room. It comes in a range of colours and styles (like herringbone laminate and high-gloss laminate) and is an affordable floor – both to install and maintain.

Advantages: It’s a cheap floor that lasts a long time and is very low maintenance. It’s also easy to install yourself, which keeps costs down further.
Disadvantages: Choose water-resistant laminate for high-humidity areas, like kitchens and utility rooms, to prevent warping.

Luxury Vinyl

Luxury vinyl comes in tiles and planks. It’s one of the more modern flooring options for a living room. It has a grain pattern to mimic hardwood floors, and it can withstand spillages and high humidity.

Advantages: Feels soft to walk on, insulates well, and has a natural-feeling grained surface. It also offers high water resistance, making it ideal for kitchens and bathrooms.
Disadvantages: Although it mimics the natural grain of solid wood, it doesn’t look quite as natural as laminate or hardwood.

Hardwood

Hardwood is one of the most beautiful types of floors for a living room. Every plank has a unique grain, and the floor feels warm and comfortable underfoot. It’s more expensive, but it can add value to your home when the floor is well-maintained.

Advantages: It’s a beautiful, soft-landing floor. It’s the most value-adding flooring that lasts up to 100 years with good care.
Disadvantages: Hardwood has a higher price tag. It also needs a good maintenance routine to stay looking its best.

Engineered Wood

Engineered wood requires a higher budget, but it offers the best of both worlds – natural beauty, longevity, and good water-resistance. It performs better than laminate and hardwood in high-humidity environments.

Advantages: It’s a comfortable, durable floor. It offers similar natural beauty to hardwood, but with more durability and less maintenance.
Disadvantages: It’s slightly more expensive compared to laminate, carpet, or luxury vinyl. Professional installation is also required. Get a quote today.

FAQs

What is the Most Popular Flooring for a Living Room?

Laminate is the most popular flooring for a living room. You can match laminate floors to every colour and décor scheme. It creates a casual, minimalist vibe that feels clean, sleek, and modern.

Luxury vinyl flooring is also rising in popularity as an alternative to laminate floors or the more expensive hardwood and engineered wood.

Carpet is also a popular option for a living room, but it offers a very different aesthetic. Carpeted living rooms feel warm and cozy, and they look their best in an enclosed living room rather than an open-plan space.

Is Vinyl or Laminate Better for a Living Room?

Both are durable, long-lasting, and aesthetically beautiful floors for a home. Vinyl and laminate are affordable, easy to install, and have the potential to add value to a property.

The only difference is the slight variation in appearance and feel.

Luxury vinyl appears shinier and has a grain effect that you can feel on the surface. It’s also slightly more cushioned to walk on.

Whereas laminate feels firmer and has a smooth, low-sheen finish.