Best Bathroom Flooring Options

---

Table of Contents

• What to Consider When Choosing Bathroom Flooring
• Best Types of Flooring for Bathrooms
• Tips for Choosing Bathroom Flooring
• Schedule an Appointment with 50Floor to Get New Bathroom Flooring

---

You bathe, wash the pets, shower, shave and may even do your laundry in the bathroom. Put together, what do these activities usually lead to? Often, a wet floor.

If you’re considering updating your bathroom flooring, you may be wondering what the best flooring options are. Although looks matter when it comes to the best type of bathroom flooring, this is one room of the house where you want to emphasize functionality. Even if you don’t end up dripping water across the floor after a bath or shower, bathrooms are the most humid rooms in the home. You want flooring that can handle humidity more than anything else.

Here are the materials to keep in mind when shopping for new bathroom flooring.

 

What to Consider When Choosing Bathroom Floors

What should you be thinking about when deciding between different types of flooring for the bathroom? It helps to take a step back and examine how your family uses the room and what your design or aesthetic goals are for the bathroom. Here are a few things to consider.

1. The Size of the Bathroom

Some bathrooms are as big as a bedroom, if not bigger. Others are smaller than a linen closet. The room’s size can influence the flooring you choose, as it determines how much material you need and how long the installation will take. The materials required and the installation process have some effect on the cost of the flooring project.

If your budget is tight, but your bathroom is small, you might be able to work with a higher-end material. If you have a more modest budget but a larger bathroom, you may need to consider less expensive flooring options.

2. Who Uses the Bathroom

Another thing to consider when you’re browsing bathroom floor options is who is going to use the room. If you’re redoing the floors of the kids’ bathroom or are adding a new bathroom to your home for your children to use, it can be a good idea to choose flooring that can withstand whatever kids throw its way.

Kids tend to be messier in the bathroom than adults. They’re likely to splash in the tub, forget to close the shower curtain or drip water across the floor after bathing. Although moisture-resistant flooring is a good idea for any bathroom, you want to pay close attention to how well the flooring resists water and moisture for a kids’ bathroom.

That said, if you are putting new floors in a bathroom that doesn’t get much use, such as an en suite in a guest bedroom or a small powder room off of the foyer, you might be able to choose a material that’s less durable or that has low moisture resistance.

3. How Your Family Uses the Bathroom

It can be helpful to take a few minutes and think about how your family will use the bathroom. If it is a kids’ bathroom, will they spend hours playing and splashing water out of the tub? If your family has pets, will you give them baths in one of the bathrooms? Are you concerned that your family’s dog will shake and spray water everywhere?

If you’re redoing the floors in your primary bathroom, how much time do you spend there? Do you have a soaking tub to relax in during the evening? Do you hop in the shower for 10 minutes in the morning, then hop out again?

If you have a powder room or half bath downstairs, does it get a lot of use or only when guests come over? Do people tend to spill water on the floor in the half bathroom after washing their hands, or is it usually pretty clean and dry?

4. Your Budget

Your overall budget for your bathroom project will determine what type of floor is best for you. Some less expensive flooring options include luxury vinyl and laminate, while options like hardwood flooring tend to be pricier.

While your budget is an important consideration, it doesn’t necessarily need to limit your flooring options. For instance, you can enjoy the look of tile and hardwood for a lower price by installing luxury vinyl flooring. If you want premium materials but find that it is more expensive than you expected or might put you over budget, look for other places where you can cut back. If your budget is for an entire bathroom remodel, you might adjust other fixtures or decide not to add specific features.

5. The Style of Your Bathroom

Another thing to think about when assessing bathroom floor choices is your decorative style. Whether you end up going with engineered hardwood, luxury vinyl or laminate flooring, you’re likely to find that each option has various choices regarding colors and appearance. Luxury vinyl flooring can resemble tile or wood planks. Laminate flooring often looks almost identical to tile or wood.

Some of the things to think about when deciding the type of style you want include:

• The colors you like.
• How you want the bathroom to feel.
• The textures that appeal to you.

6. Safety

Since bathroom floors get slick with moisture from showers and steam, choosing flooring that keeps you safe from slips and falls is essential. Luckily, there are a few options that you can install in your bathroom that offer slip-resistant surfaces. The texture on top of luxury vinyl flooring can help make each trip to the bathroom safe for you, your guests and your children.

7. Maintenance

An easy cleaning routine can make a huge difference for those with busy schedules. Fortunately, several bathroom floor types have a nonporous, hard surface, so moisture and messes cannot get through the material. These factors make it easy to sweep or mop your floors so you can return to your daily routine without thinking twice about your floor’s maintenance.

8. Installation

Installation costs, process and timeline can differ depending on your chosen bathroom flooring options. Various flooring types have different installation procedures that take time and dedication to complete properly. Without a team of highly qualified installation professionals to install your new bathroom floors, you can run into extended deadlines and extra costs. Before deciding on your bathroom flooring type, discuss the time estimate and prices with a trusted team of contractors so you can enjoy your new floor that meets your standards.

Schedule a Free In-Home Consultation

 

Best Types of Bathroom Flooring

Now that you know what to think about when choosing the flooring for your bathroom, take a closer look at some specific bathroom flooring options. Some of the best bathroom flooring options include:

1. Luxury Vinyl

If you want to replace the flooring in a bathroom that kids or teenagers primarily use, consider installing a luxury vinyl plank (LVP) floor. Today’s luxury vinyl flooring options are available in more styles than past flooring. Advances in material and construction have made luxury vinyl one of the industry’s most durable flooring solutions.

You can choose from luxury vinyl planks (LVP) that imitate the look of wood or luxury vinyl tiles (LVT) that mimic the look of natural stone. Additionally, a specially designed bottom layer enables softer footing than hard ceramic or porcelain materials.

Some of the benefits of luxury vinyl flooring in the bathroom include:

• Waterproof: A synthetic material, this option can resist water and moisture. You don’t need to be concerned about the flooring absorbing water and becoming damaged or deformed. Our luxury vinyl floors are waterproof with 24- to 72-hour guaranteed protection.
• Availability in various styles: Whether you choose luxury vinyl planks or tiles, you’re likely to find that the flooring is available in various colors and patterns. Some types of this flooring imitate natural materials, such as wood or stone.
• Cost-effectiveness: Luxury vinyl flooring costs less per square foot than other materials. Its planks or tiles that look like wood or stone are usually much less expensive than the materials they imitate. In addition, faster and easier installation provides even more cost savings.
• Low maintenance: Luxury vinyl is pretty easy to keep clean and maintain. You can use most floor cleaners, vacuums or brooms to remove dust and debris.
• Extra protection: The synthetic structure offers protection against everyday wear and tear, including scratches, scuffs, dents and high foot traffic.

2. Laminate

Like luxury vinyl, laminate flooring contains synthetic materials and can imitate the look of wood or tile. It’s also somewhat moisture-resistant, making it a good option for some bathrooms. Although laminate isn’t ideal for every bathroom, it can be a good choice for some, such as a powder room or half bath.

Laminate flooring comes in a comprehensive range of styles to complement almost any bathroom design scheme, from rustic to modern.

Additional advantages of laminate flooring for the bathroom include:

• Availability in a wide range of colors and styles: If you want to imitate the look of wood or tile, you can with laminate flooring.
• Budget–friendliness: Often, laminate costs less per square foot than natural materials such as tile or wood.
• Moisture resistance: Laminate flooring is sealed and can resist moisture to some degree. Waterproof laminate flooring offers even more protection for high-traffic bathrooms.
• Easy cleaning: You can sweep, mop or vacuum laminate when cleaning it.
• Durability: Laminate floors resist daily wear and tear and other potential hazards, including staining, fading, scuffs and scratches.

3. Tile

Tile might be the option that first comes to mind when people think of bathroom floors. Although traditional materials like ceramic and porcelain were popular years ago, luxury vinyl tile has overtaken the market as one of the most popular flooring choices for today’s bathrooms. Because it outperforms more expensive natural materials on nearly every level, many top flooring companies like 50Floor offer LVT as their exclusive tile line. Its durable construction makes LVT especially beneficial in high-traffic bathrooms.

LVT is available in a comprehensive range of colors and patterns, allowing you to create almost any type of look in your bathroom, from classic to modern.

LVT consists of four unique layers that each perform a separate function. The image layer is the printed portion that shows a specific color or pattern, while the wear layer protects the floor’s surface. The core layer provides stability and rigidity, and the backing offers cushioning to the entire construction.

Besides coming in materials that can mimic porcelain and ceramic, LVT also has designs that replicate natural hardwood and stone. Other benefits include:

• Fast installation: Installation professionals can install LVT in significantly less time than conventional tile materials.
• Cost savings: The lower material costs and ease of installation offer increased cost savings over natural materials.
• Diversity: The vast design selections provide a color, pattern or texture that complements the existing decor and lighting of almost any bathroom.
• Easy maintenance: Caring for luxury vinyl tile flooring is as easy as sweeping, vacuuming or applying a damp mop.
• Strength: Technological advancements in construction and material make LVT one of the market’s most durable flooring options.
• Long-Lasting: Multiple synthetic layers enable LVT to resist stains, scratches and moisture and provide decades of reliable service.

Overall, LVT is the best tile option for bathrooms because of its strength, low cost and minimal maintenance, which is why 50Floor offers it instead of ceramic and porcelain.

4. Hardwood

If you have a bathroom without a shower or tub, engineered hardwood is a great choice for stylish, durable and versatile flooring. If you have hardwood throughout the rest of your home, you might want to use it in a bathroom to create a cohesive, uniform look.

While solid hardwood flooring is usually not particularly moisture resistant and often isn’t ideal for bathrooms, the engineered hardwood’s design improves its moisture resistance. Like your other options for bathroom flooring, considering how you use your bathroom is critical when deciding if this option is the right choice for you.

Engineered floors are made with multiple layers of material to create a floorboard with a solid core that is more resistant to expanding or contracting when exposed to higher levels of moisture and humidity. Engineered floorboards have a top layer of hardwood, making them look and feel just like solid wood floors. The top layer, also called the wear layer, is glued to 5 to 11 layers of material like plywood, fiberboard, or Baltic Birch, with the grain in each layer running in different directions. This construction makes engineered wood flooring ideal for installation in bathrooms and laundry rooms, over concrete slabs or radiant heat, or in locations below grade like a basement.

Some of the advantages of engineered and solid hardwood flooring include:

• Warmth and aesthetics: There’s a reason why hardwood is so popular. People often find it looks good and creates an inviting environment in a bathroom or throughout a home. This flooring complements nearly any type of decor, from traditional to modern.
• Availability in various colors and species: Hardwood flooring contains many different species of wood, each with its own characteristics. The wood can be finished in a range of colors, as well. Choose from birch, maple, oak, walnut, cherry and more.
• Durability: True to its name, hardwood is a hard-wearing surface that withstands considerable wear and tear. Engineered wood floors have multiple layers compressed together on top of premium-grade plywood. The sturdy construction makes engineered hardwood a highly durable choice for high-traffic bathrooms.
• High performance: Engineered hardwood’s stability provides resistance against humidity and moisture to extend its life span. This material maintains a consistent shape without warping, flexing, bending or contracting.

Take Our Quiz to Find Your Flooring Style

Tips for Choosing Bathroom Flooring

If you’re ready to take a closer look at your options for bathroom flooring, the following tips can help you narrow down your choices:

• Be realistic: If you have a feeling that easy bathroom flooring, such as a material that is relatively maintenance-free and easy to clean, is going to work with your lifestyle, don’t trick yourself into thinking you need to have flooring that’s higher-end but also more challenging to maintain.
• Think of how you use the bathroom: The best flooring for your bathroom will withstand whatever you throw its way. If you’re getting a new floor in a high-traffic, high-water-use bathroom, pick a flooring type that can handle it. If you don’t use the bathroom much, you can choose a flooring option that’s a little more delicate.
• Try before you buy: The best way to understand how a particular type of flooring will look in your bathroom is to see it in the room before installation. Have a flooring professional visit your home with samples to see how laminate, luxury vinyl or hardwood will look so you can find the ideal bathroom flooring for your space.

Bathroom Flooring Inspiration

With any of the bathroom floor types mentioned above, you can make this living space in your home stand out. You can coordinate your floor with your wall colors and furniture for a consistent aesthetic. The possibilities are endless, and you can use your creative freedom and imagination to create a gorgeous bathroom.

To give you extra inspiration for your bathroom flooring, consider the following aesthetic choices you can implement into your project.

Colors

Luxury vinyl, laminate and hardwood floors come in many colors that complement any aesthetic. Choosing a flooring color that coordinates with the existing wall hues is best to ensure the whole room ties together nicely. To do this, you can follow the warm and cool hue rule.

You have a warm-tone bathroom if your wall color is orange, yellow, red, brown or beige. If the walls use blue, green, purple or gray, your bathroom is cool-toned. These colors indicate different hues that work well together, so you can pick a bathroom floor color that pairs with the same type of tones. If your wall colors are black or white, you can choose any color you desire for your bathroom floor.

You can choose lighter colors, such as white, light gray or beige, to make the room appear larger. These shades draw attention to the bathroom features rather than the floor, so you and your guests can enjoy a spacious living space.

Styles

Luxury vinyl, laminate and hardwood floors also come in many different styles that can make your bathroom space come to life. Whatever aesthetic you picture for your bathroom, these floors can recreate it perfectly to meet your standards. A few unique ambiances that you can implement in your bathroom include:

• Cozy: Hardwood floors are your go-to option for a bathroom that’s instantly relaxing and feels like home. This option is the best bathroom flooring if you want warm, rustic and timeless-styled panels that complement almost any cozy aesthetic you have in mind.
• Minimalistic: Modern-style bathrooms embody the simplicity and beauty of minimalistic designs. This aesthetic easily highlights the bathrooms’ features and only requires one color on your floor. You can choose luxury vinyl, laminate and hardwood options that resemble wood, marble and stone with a single color. This small choice goes a long way for a gorgeous bathroom.
• Boho: For a carefree yet beautiful style that works in any living space, you can create a boho aesthetic in your bathroom using patterned flooring. Luxury vinyl tile flooring can come in patterned designs that use white, pale blues, greens and earth tones to create a free-spirited aesthetic in your bathroom.

Best Ways to Protect Hardwood Floors in a Bathroom

1. Reapply Top Finish Regularly

To prevent moisture from penetrating your hardwood floors, it’s crucial to reapply the top finish layer regularly. This protective barrier helps keep water from soaking into the wood and seeping through the cracks.

2. Utilize Bathmats

Placing bathmats around key areas, such as in front of the tub or shower, can catch water splashes and drips. This simple addition minimizes the risk of water damage.

3. Install Water Surrounds

Adding surrounds around your tub and shower will significantly help in containing water, ensuring it doesn’t escape onto the floor. This step is vital for maintaining the beauty and durability of your hardwood floors.

4. Use a Bathroom Fan

A bathroom exhaust fan plays a significant role in managing humidity. By keeping humidity levels in check, you reduce the likelihood of moisture-related issues such as warping or swelling.

These proactive measures help safeguard your hardwood floors, ensuring they remain beautiful and durable even in a moisture-prone environment like the bathroom.