Whether you are renovating your home or having a house built, choosing the flooring for each room of your home is a critical decision that will affect the look, feel, and functionality of each room for years to come. The floor is an important focal point for the eyes, and the rest of the room is often designed around it. Each unique floor surface is one your family will walk on, sit on, and play on. Your floor choice should reflect the look you are going for in each room of the house, and should also stand up to the many demands that will be made of it.

Besides the look and feel of each floor, consideration should be taken on maintenance, budget, and location.

So, what kind of flooring options best suit each room of the house? Naturally we may opt for a different type of floor for a bedroom than a kitchen, but what flooring types should we be looking for in each type of room?

Quintessential Kitchen Flooring

The kitchen is the heart of the household. It’s where your family meals take place, even if they are only take-out pizza on a busy evening between school and driving the kids to soccer practice. The kitchen is where we face each other each morning over coffee and breakfast and prepare to start our day. It’s where we spend a great deal of time cooking, counter-wiping, and loading and unloading the dishwasher. The kitchen is also the room where we have the most spills, splashes, crumbs, and clean-ups.

Keeping all of these things in mind while choosing a floor for the kitchen is essential. It’s important to focus on a floor choice that’s both easy to clean and maintain, and also comfortable enough for you to be able to spend a great deal of time walking around without your feet hurting.

Cork is a growing trend in kitchen flooring for a good reason. Cork is easy to clean and is resistant to mold and mildew and is naturally antimicrobial. Cork is insulating and feels cushiony under the feet, even though it wipes clean as easily as tile. Cork is attractive and easy to install, generally coming in squares that are laid down like tile.

Tile has long been considered one of the best kitchen flooring choices. The options are endless when it comes to size, color, and pattern, so you can easily find what you want for any decorating choice.

Hardwood flooring is another popular choice for today’s kitchens. It has a warm, honey glow, and is easy to clean and maintain.

Linoleum has also long been a popular choice for the kitchen. It’s unbeatable for easy cleaning, and softer on the feet than tile and wood. Today’s choices in linoleum flooring bear little resemblance to the speckled linoleum in your grandmother’s kitchen. Linoleum is available in a variety of beautiful colors, styles, and patterns.

Living Room Looks

The living room is where the family relaxes in the evening, binge-watching a favorite show, or curling up with popcorn and a movie. It’s where people and pets hang out during those precious off-hours when we are home with the family for the evening. While carpeting is comfortable, it’s also difficult to clean in high traffic areas, or places where pets play. For that reason, many households have tossed out the wall-to-wall carpeting in favor of a hard surface floor and a cozy area rug. Today’s top choices for living room flooring are hardwood or laminate.

Hardwood flooring in the living room has a warm, comforting glow. It’s easy to sweep clean or dry mop between cleanings, making it easy to maintain. It’s strong and durable and adds value to your home. It’s extremely long-lasting, making it suitable for high traffic areas, and doesn’t fade with light exposure.

Laminate flooring is another popular choice for living rooms. Laminate is usually made to mimic hardwood and the higher quality ones can look quite convincing. Laminate is also available in versions that resemble stone or brick. Good laminate flooring is easier to clean than hardwood, and better at resisting both scratches and moisture. It’s ideal for rooms with pets and children because it stands up to a lot of wear and tear and always looks great.

Bold Bathroom Looks

Bathroom floors have to be moisture-resistant as well as attractive in a relatively small space. Porcelain tile tops the list of best bathroom flooring choices. Porcelain tile has a hard exterior that resists moisture from steam and splashing. Porcelain tile is easy to personalize as it comes in an incredible array of color and style options, ranging from wood-look, to faux-marble, or small mosaic tiles for artsy designs that range from simple to intricate and stunning.

Vinyl is another popular choice for bathroom flooring. It’s highly moisture-resistant, as well as practical and inexpensive. It can be designed to mimic wood, stone, brick, and tile of any type you can imagine. Vinyl is highly versatile to fit any decor you have in mind from rustic to contemporary.

Brilliant Bedroom Flooring

The bedroom is one place that carpeting may still be practical as well as comfortable. No one wants to get out of a warm bed and place bare feet on a hard cold floor. Carpet is available in an endless range of colors, naps, textures, and even patterns. It’s a soft, warm, inviting look and feel for a bedroom. It also insulates sound and aids in controlling room temperature, both of which are important in a sleeping environment. Carpet choices include wall-to-wall, or area rugs over hard surface flooring like hardwood or laminate. Shaggy area rugs are attractive and comforting on bare feet.

Carpet works well in adult bedrooms and the bedrooms of older children. For young children who make frequent messes with spills, toys, and artwork, a hard surface floor with scatter rugs works well. Cork flooring is noise insulating and gentle on the feet, making it ideal for upstairs children’s bedrooms.

Whatever your flooring choices for each room of the house, there are many available options. Making a final choice in colors and styles is the fun part of flooring decisions, once you’ve determined what flooring type best suits your needs for each room.

Resources— TheSpruce, ThisOldHouse, DecorAid