Best flooring for utility rooms

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If you’re lucky enough to have a utility room, you’ll need to be sure you have flooring that can stand up to the challenge of all those daily chores. There is an ideal flooring type for your utility room, and we’re going to help you find it.

In this guide we’ll explain the purpose of a utility room and how it has a significant impact on the flooring you choose, as well as the different options available for you to pick from and inspire you with some utility room flooring ideas.

What is a utility room?

A utility room is a space in your home you for all your regular duties, whether that’s laundry or ironing. It may also be the place to keep cleaning supplies, storage, or even as a place for your pets. It’s most often found just off your kitchen, which is often why your kitchen and utility flooring may be similar. Our guide on the best flooring for kitchens will have some good advice, as it’s a great place to start if you’re going for a full revamp of both rooms and want co-ordinated flooring.

Your utility will have a lot of activity, with busy feet wandering through it daily, so it needs a flooring that looks good and can also stand the test of time – let’s find out what some of those options are.

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What is the best flooring for a utility room?

While the best flooring for your utility room is a personal choice, we can give you plenty of guidance on different options.

Laminate

Our collection of laminate flooring is perfect for your utility room – it’s a better alternative to wood, as it’s created from multiple layers of composite materials working together to give you floorboards that are sturdy, durable, and won’t need as much care over time. Laminate is a great choice for busy areas, and we even have a collection of water-resistant laminate perfect for utility rooms that are full of laundry and are moisture. If you’re interested to find out more, we’ve prepared a guide called ‘What is laminate?’.

Vinyl

Our vinyl collection is an exceptionally good fit for your standard utility room – it’s comfortable underfoot, it’s the toughest flooring when it comes to withstanding moisture and lots of footsteps, and it also comes in a huge variety of different designs, so you can pick between stone-effect, wood-effect or even patterned vinyl that gives your utility room a little pizzazz. Why can’t your utility room be fun as well as functional?

Luxury Vinyl

Luxury vinyl tile (LVT) is always a major upgrade for any utility room. It’s created with a top layer that acts as a barrier for dust and dirt, so it’s perfect for a house with pets or where there’s a lot of activity. And it’s strong too, made from layers of sturdy material. And as an added bonus, it has a lovely appearance too, with a realistic wood or tile-effect look and feel. Our guide to the different types of flooring finishes has lots of helpful insights into the different finishes you might see on flooring like LVT.

Engineered wood

If your utility room is located off your kitchen or another room, you may be thinking you want to keep the flow of your flooring, especially if you already have gorgeous wood flooring – here’s where engineered wood comes in. It’s actually stronger than solid wood, as it’s created from layers of strong material, which make it more stable. With the beauty of solid wood on the top, it’s ideal for busy spaces like your utility room, especially if you love this mix of practicality and style.

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What to consider when choosing the best flooring for a laundry room

There are three things you need to consider when you’re picking the best flooring for your utility room:

Your budget
What you need from your flooring
The condition of your subfloor

Rest assured whatever your budget, we’ll help you find the perfect flooring that suits your wallet and provides you with something that stands the test of time and look incredible, too.

Your second thing to think about is what you need your flooring to do for you. Do you need it to be water-resistant and capable of standing up to anything your pets or children might throw at it, or on it? Vinyl is a great choice, especially if you opt for one of our scratch resistant options too. If you want it to maintain a co-ordinated look, with added robustness, then engineered wood or LVT could also be great options. Keep these thoughts in mind when you’re picking out free samples.

The final consideration is one that many people might not immediately think about is the condition of your subfloor. Your new flooring has to sit on top of your subfloor, which has to be dry, level, dust-free and stable, something we discuss in much more depth in our Four signs of a good subfloor guide.

Utility room flooring ideas

There are so many great ideas out there for different ways you could style your utility flooring – we’ve come up some of our favourites you could pick from:

Black and white checkered flooring: This classic style pays homage to the grand kitchens and washrooms of old manor houses and castles, a great choice for a traditional home
Pastel tiles: Pastels are very trendy right now, and opting for a pastel-coloured utility room is a great way of bringing some character into a smaller space. Pick between rose pink, mint green, or baby blue for some primary colour fun.
Herringbone tiles: This style, which was first made popular by the French, is very sophisticated, and easily achieved with different types of flooring, from laminate to engineered wood, whichever flooring you love most for your laundry room.
Minimal shades: Grey, white and black are never going to go out of style, so creating a minimal flooring with one seamless colour gives you the opportunity to be more playful with colour in other areas of your utility room, like a splash of green or a bold pop of red on your cabinets or through your décor.

Finding exactly the right flooring to fit both your needs and your style is an accomplishment, and one that we really want to help you feel like you’ve achieved! Pop into your local Tapi store to speak with our expert floorologists about how we can help you find your dream flooring, and take some of our free samples home with you to try out in the space today – your utility room ideas will come to life sooner than you think!

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