Are you looking for a distinctive flooring style to match your lovely room? You’re in the right place! We’ve listed the 13 best flooring trends to help you find out the flooring you’re looking for.
We hope after reading this article, you’ll make your final decision based on your needs. Let’s dive in!
The Best Flooring Trends of 2023
1. Natural Hardwood
If you have the budget for it, hardwood flooring is still king. Durable, beautiful, and just overall reliable, they are simply the first choice among all flooring trends. Being full of character and authentic, they give a timeless and elegant look to your floor.
Standard hardwood flooring can come from different types of wood, with the entire range varying from hard to soft. Popular choices include oak, maple, and cherry. These will last for a long time and works with almost any room in the house.
Hardwood has also been the choice of many homeowners due to its repairability. Repairing hardwood floors can be as easy as sanding the affected area, smoothing it, then refinishing it. Plus, hardwood can literally last for a long time, that reclaimed hardwood is also a thing, as you’ll see when you go through this list.
Natural hardwood is a top contender, but there are variations of hardwood floors that people have also been gravitating toward.
2. Blanched and Bleached Hardwood
Where natural hardwood provides a raw and authentic character to the room, blanched and bleached hardwood infuse the room with modernity. Lighter and brighter wood floors are easy on the eyes and are perfect for complementing a relaxing atmosphere.
Blanched hardwood matches a blonde look that makes for lighter flooring if the darker shade of hardwood is not up your alley. Meanwhile, bleached hardwood, which becomes almost ashy white, is best for rooms for relaxation and spaces that you want to look wide and vast.
You’ll see these types on oceanside and coastal homes; the bright colors match the aesthetic of the sandy beaches really well.
3. Reclaimed Hardwood
If you place high importance on sustainability and environment-friendliness (as everyone should, anyway), reclaimed hardwood is an amazing substitute that lets you have natural hardwood at a lower cost.
Many vintage houses have perfectly functional hardwood flooring that can be reclaimed and used for new houses. As long as it’s genuine hardwood, you need not worry about quality as hardwood tends to last for a long time.
Plus, new regulations that prohibit the cutting down of certain trees might actually make reclaimed hardwood a rarity, since they may no longer be available in the market.
4. Engineered Wood
If you want the character of natural hardwood but are not willing to dish out a lot of money for it, engineered wood flooring might be more your style. You get the timeless look and the reliability of hardwood (as long as you get high-quality engineered wood) without the price tag.
Engineered wood consists of a plywood core and a genuine solid wood veneer, and once installed, it will be indistinguishable from natural hardwood. Higher-quality engineered wood can also be made to be more durable than natural hardwood itself, which is always a good thing.
Most variations of hardwood and textures will also be available for engineered wood floors, so you are never out of options at any point in the budget tier you are.
5. Luxury Vinyl Tiles
Vinyl has always been a durable material, but improvements in technology have allowed luxury vinyl tiles to become a truly viable substitute for popular wood flooring options. Durable and endlessly customizable, they are easily becoming many homeowners’ go-to flooring option.
Luxury vinyl tiles are durable, waterproof, and stain-resistant, so people with children and pets naturally gravitate to this flooring. Plus, you can match the aesthetic of other hardwood or have an entirely different design to your vinyl tiles, a massive plus for the design-conscious homeowner.
Match everything with ease of maintenance and a significantly lower price tag, and busy homeowners will immediately take LVT in a heartbeat.
6. Waterproof Laminate
Not only vinyl benefits from great strides in technology. Laminate flooring, generally treated as a low-quality option, has come a long way to even matching LVT in terms of durability. Laminate has also been the original choice for people who want to match hardwood flooring in terms of appearance.
Although normal laminate is not very good at taking moisture damage, waterproof laminate is suitable for high moisture applications, and it can take a few scratches. It easily becomes a good choice for homeowners with pets.
However, waterproof laminate’s true selling point is its incredibly low cost, even lower than LVT/LVP, which makes them an attractive option for people who don’t have a lot to spend on flooring.
7. Natural Concrete
Concrete floors are perfect for those who are looking for either an industrial or contemporary look in their rooms. Clean and simple, natural concrete and concrete tiles are reliably durable and low-maintenance.
Concrete has always been a classic, but nowadays it comes in a variety of textures and finishes, giving a distinct aesthetic to each floor. The distressed texture of concrete tiles also gives that lived-in effect that is getting popular lately.
You’ll find concrete as a great flooring option for bathrooms and kitchens, too, especially with a distressed texture.
8. Carpet
Despite hardwood and vinyl flooring gaining a lot of traction among flooring trends, carpet flooring remains a popular choice for niche rooms that prioritize comfort. Bedrooms and living rooms with area rugs and high-plush carpets are still going to be trendy choices.
Departing from the hard surface flooring options on this list, carpet flooring will continue to provide a warm, softer underfoot for people who prefer it, and it can be customized to match the aesthetic of the room.
9. Bamboo
Rising in popularity among flooring options nowadays is bamboo flooring. Although often quoted for its sustainability, bamboo is actually much more durable than hardwood and doesn’t suffer from wild temperature and humidity fluctuations.
Bamboo is a fast-growing species of grass, so we can harvest it at a faster rate and without any major environmental consequences. Plus, it has quite a lot of good things going for it: aside from being more durable than hardwood, they are also significantly cheaper and ideal for high-traffic areas.
It also works with all climates, so you don’t have to worry about potential gaps on your floor, which can happen on hardwood that was not properly installed.
10. Cork
If you want carpet flooring but are also conscious about sustainability, then cork flooring might pique your interest. Cork flooring provides a soft, cushioned surface that most hard flooring options don’t offer, while also making you less guilty about harming the environment.
With an ongoing trend for earthier and warmer tones, cork fits the bill perfectly. It can also be refinished periodically, fixing up any damage that it may get. Plus, cork is an amazing insulator, which may be a big plus, especially during the winter seasons.
Cork flooring is also relatively cheap, matching that of bamboo. However, homeowners with pets might want to steer away from this option, as they are relatively susceptible to damage from getting clawed over and over.
11. Decorative Tiles
Of course, if aesthetics and creativity are of utmost importance to you, then look no further than decorative tiles. Tile flooring has been a popular choice for a while, and certain tile materials are reliably durable and easy to maintain.
However, tiles win out in their customizability. Whether you want to match certain looks or go full unorthodox with decorative tiles and unnatural shapes, tile is unmatched. You can also have your choice of tile material, such as ceramic, porcelain, and even marble and granite for more durability.
Tiles are also waterproof, making them an amazing choice for bathrooms and kitchens.
12. Wide Planks
More of a style rather than the type of material, wide planks are gaining traction because of the cleaner look and fewer points of failure, especially with hardwood.
Variations of hardwood and luxury vinyl planks can be cut into wider planks of 8 to 20 inches to be used for your floor. With wide planks, you get a cleaner look because there are lesser seams to work with. Plus, with lesser seams, that also means that there are lesser points where water and dirt would accumulate.
If you’re getting any of the materials listed in this article, try out getting them in wide planks.
13. Parquet
Another flooring trend that’s more of a style rather than a material, parquet refers to the arrangement of wood planks into a certain geometric pattern, commonly the herringbone pattern or sometimes the chevron design.
These patterned layouts add a lot of character to the flooring, and using wood especially makes your space more elegant. However, you can use any material to fit into these patterns. Yes, even tiles can be used to make parquet flooring!
Conclusion
Although flooring only deals with the part of the house that we step on, you’ll find that picking the right flooring option will greatly affect the aesthetic and the reliability of your space in general. Choosing the right style and design for your room can be just as important as finding the right flooring material that fits the purpose of the space.
We hope that the flooring trends we’ve listed here have inspired you to pick the right flooring for your house. Remember to match your floor design with the rest of the room to maintain a harmonious effect.