This post may contain references or links to products from one or more partners of our parent company and/or subsidiaries of our parent company. For more information, visit this page.
Updated 9/20/23
Want to give your laundry room an upgrade and looking for the best laundry room flooring? You’re in the right place!
Laundry rooms see things that few other rooms in the home ever do—namely, a lot of water and weight. You’ve probably already realized that you must choose your laundry room flooring wisely—and that’s why you’re here! So, what’s the best flooring for a laundry room?
Best Laundry Room Flooring Brands
Already set on your material and need to know the best brands? Here are some high-performance flooring brands sure to deliver:
Proximity Mills
Visit their site | Find a retailer | Free Sample (Use code ONEONUS)
Liberty Home
Visit their site | Find a retailer | Order samples
TRUCOR
Visit their site | Find a retailer | Order samples
Below, we’ll guide you through our 8 favorite laundry room flooring options and brands so you can choose the one that will best serve your space! We’ll also talk about the 3 laundry room floors that you should avoid at all costs.
Table of Contents
It can be challenging to decide what types of flooring should go in each room of your home, and laundry room flooring is no different. Each room has specific needs, so something that works great as bedroom flooring won’t necessarily be the best flooring for bathrooms or the best floor for a basement. The best laundry room floor will have a few unique features.
You hope most of the water stays inside your washing machine, but unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Often, wet clothes drip when you move them to the dryer, and sometimes, your washing machine springs a leak. Since water will be the most significant hazard in your laundry room, ensure your floor can withstand the wetness with waterproof or water-resistant options.
Laundry rooms aren’t typically quiet places where people do their tasks calmly and gently. Aside from the super-heavy machinery that takes up space on the floor, people tend to stomp in and drop down heavy loads of laundry. The ideal laundry room floor should be durable, resistant to dings, and scratch-resistant for a better appearance and easier cleaning.
You may not feel like a mad scientist while doing your laundry, but you work with chemicals like one! Laundry detergents, fabric softeners, and good ol’ bleach can all splash. So, if some contaminants get onto your floor, it’s essential to know that your laundry room flooring will retain its natural color after cleaning.
Speaking of easy cleaning, nobody wants to spend much time cleaning their laundry room flooring. The best flooring for this purpose can handle a swift mopping so you can get on with your day. Doing laundry is enough of a chore!
Let’s dive right into our top choices, which are excellent in form and function. Each of these will suit different needs based on where your laundry room is and how you use it.
Vinyl flooring is a budget-friendly and durable option that offers various attractive styles, even mimicking pricier flooring. However, it’s not very eco-friendly due to its plastic composition and off-gassing. Be sure to opt for brands that offer low-VOC options addressing this issue.
When choosing between luxury vinyl plank (LVP) and luxury vinyl tile (LVT), remember that they are essentially the same, with different appearances. LVP resembles wood planks, while LVT closely imitates tiles. Both share the pros and cons of vinyl plank flooring, and their installation costs are identical.
All vinyl flooring is waterproof since it’s made from PVC, but proper installation is crucial to maintain its waterproof properties. Consult a flooring professional to choose between glue-down or loose-lay vinyl for your laundry room.
Porcelain tile is a classic choice—it’s still one of the best laundry room flooring options, and it’s no wonder why. It covers nearly all your laundry room needs; it’s ultra waterproof, super durable, and simple to clean. In addition, there are unlimited types of floor tiles, so you can easily find pretty styles to spice up your laundry room.
We aren’t saying that tile is impossible to install yourself, but it is not easy to get it right. It’s safest to hire a professional to deal with this challenge. There is the option of snap-together tile flooring, but it may not give you the tight seal you need for waterproof laundry room flooring. Bonus: you can find wood-look tile from many manufacturers for the best of both worlds!
Waterproof laminate flooring is an excellent laundry room floor because even the best laminate flooring is inexpensive and a snap to clean. It doesn’t dent or scratch easily, either. So, in these respects, tile is very similar to laminate. But that’s where the similarities end. Because while tile is fully waterproof, laminate is not.
With that in mind, if you install laminate in your laundry room, it must be the waterproof type. Regular laminate is not water-friendly. Fortunately, there are many excellent waterproof laminates, like the ones sold by Liberty Home
Fun fact: Liberty Home’s laminate products are all FloorScore certified, environmentally friendly, and low VOC, ensuring peace of mind for your family.
Yes, you can have hardwood laundry room flooring! It is an elegant laundry room, but water-resistant wood flooring isn’t widespread. Waterproof hardwood works so well because each plank is protected all the way through from water damage. This means that exposure to water won’t cause your planks to swell or gap as long as it’s cleaned up in a reasonable amount of time.
The best hardwood floors are very stable, and the waterproof ones are easier to care for than traditional hardwood. However, comparing waterproof laminate vs. hardwoods, you will find that hardwood is the more costly option. That said, waterproof hardwood looks just like any other prefinished hardwood floor, so you can have your pick from all the hardwood species and types of wood flooring around. #options!
Many homeowners ask if waterproof hardwood is the same as engineered hardwood. The answer is yes and no. All waterproof hardwood is engineered, but not all engineered wood is waterproof. To put it another way, waterproof hardwood flooring is a type of engineered wood. This simply means that the wood is composed of multiple layers. That’s not a bad thing, though—engineered wood is more dimensionally stable than solid wood, and the cost to install engineered hardwood floors is lower, too.
When you opt for sheet vinyl as your laundry room flooring, you get many of the benefits of vinyl but with extra reliable waterproofing.
One of the problems with luxury vinyl tile is that if the seams aren’t perfectly tight, water can leak through them and cause damage to your subfloor. Unlike LVT and LVP, though, which are almost always sold as click-together flooring planks, sheet vinyl is exactly what it sounds like: one big roll of soft vinyl that’s glued down. This dramatically reduces the seams that water can seep through.
This makes sheet vinyl a go-to for kitchens and bathrooms everywhere (like just every kitchen from the 1980s or 90s), but it also makes it super difficult to install. Additionally, sheet vinyl isn’t the world’s best flooring regarding style choices.
One final word of wisdom here: don’t resort to peel-and-stick vinyl planks because they’re easier to install—those are not meant for hard-wearing applications like laundry room flooring!
You may already have concrete floors in your laundry room; why not go with what you already have? You already know you’ll get terrific performance from it; it’s rock-hard durable, and wholly waterproof (as long as there are no significant cracks). In addition, it’s easy enough to clean, so what’s not to love about a concrete floor?
Oh, right. It’s cold and unforgiving to walk on. Throw down a washable area rug for insulation and comfort! And sure, concrete isn’t pretty, but it doesn’t have to remain unattractive. You can paint or stain it before adding your attractive rug. Or, you can really spruce up your laundry room flooring with concrete flooring that looks like wood.
Fun fact: some brands like Proximity Mills make machine-washable carpet tiles that use velcro rather than adhesive, so you can actually wash and reuse them if they get wet (essentially peel-and-stick carpet tiles 2.0). Pretty neat!
Natural stone tile is similar to porcelain in many ways, but it’s an arguably more elegant flooring solution. Like porcelain, it can last you a lifetime and can’t be damaged by water, dents, or stains. On the downside, it’s also cold and hard, and given the price, it can be a bit of a risk using it as laundry room flooring.
The upkeep for this style of flooring may be more effort than most other flooring. For example, dirt can hide in the grooves when sweeping and mopping if your stone is textured instead of smooth. And cleaning the grout is a whole other chore.
While the waterproof option will always perform better, one of the qualities that makes all engineered wood suitable for laundry room flooring is that it’s the most durable wood flooring around—much more so than solid wood. That’s an essential consideration if you want the best laundry room flooring. It’s also more dimensionally stable than solid wood, so it won’t warp with changes in temperature and humidity.
Still, there are some engineered wood disadvantages when it comes to using it as laundry room flooring. It may be less expensive than solid hardwood, but it’s still rather costly compared to fake wood flooring. Depending on the finish, it will stain—so beware of splashes of laundry detergent. And finally, it will be ruined if your laundry room floods or if leaks and spills aren’t wiped up quickly. Even the best engineered wood floors can only do so much!
Not all flooring ideas will be winners in your search for the best laundry room flooring. We’ve covered the top 8 choices; now here are our picks for the 3 worst options for your laundry room.
Oh, carpet, where to begin? We love the feel of cozy soft fibers under our toes, but when those fibers get wet, yuck! Of course, wet carpet feels nasty, but it’s also potentially dangerous. Not all types of carpet can develop mold and mildew easily, but they don’t just smell bad when they do. Mold can destroy your subfloor.
And even the best carpet brands and products will pick up all the dust and lint from your dryer, trapping them in the carpet fibers. So, carpet isn’t the most sanitary choice for your laundry room floor.
One notable exception we’ve mentioned is machine-washable carpet tiles from Proximity Mills. Keep in mind that this only protects you from spills you can clean quickly; any standing water can still damage your subfloor
Laminate is some of the easiest flooring to install and is tremendously affordable—but it isn’t worth it if it isn’t waterproof laminate flooring. If non-waterproof laminate is exposed to water, the moisture will eat away at the particleboard base and cause it to disintegrate. You’ll only be left with the veneer layer, which isn’t thick at all.
When you’re weighing laminate flooring’s pros and cons for your laundry room, its inability to handle moisture is the most considerable disadvantage.
Buying solid hardwood floors for your laundry room is equivalent to throwing away a large amount of money. We definitely get the appeal of this beautiful flooring option, but you can easily get the same look with waterproof hardwood or engineered wood instead.
There are multiple reasons that solid hardwood isn’t the best laundry room flooring. Water, traffic, detergent stains, and heavy machines are all enemies to this lovely flooring. Save it for a more deserving room!
We’ve thrown many options at you; hopefully, one of them is already speaking to you. It’s nice not to feel limited, and with these great laundry room flooring options, there’s something for every budget, style, taste, and need.
Once you’re ready to take that next step toward purchasing and installing your best laundry room floor, have your local flooring store help you get started! Happy Laundry Day!
And for more info, check out:
The kitchen is still the heart of the home, and LVP flooring remains one of the best options for kitchen flooring. Let’s discuss the benefits, top brands to consider, and features to look for in the best vinyl plank flooring for kitchens.
It’s a serious question: can vinyl plank flooring go in a bathroom? We hear you, we have your back, and we’re not wasting any time! Below we’re explaining all the pros and cons of using LVP in a bathroom, going over a few of the best vinyl plank flooring brands, and to wrap things up, answering any and all lingering questions!
Have you been thinking about carpeting your basement? Wondering what’s the best carpet for basements? That’s reasonable! You need to be sure that you aren’t wasting money with a basement carpet that might get ruined quickly. We’re all familiar with how musty basements can get. Even nice, finished basements can be prone to dampness after a hard rain. The best basement flooring has to be able to handle some amount of moisture.
