Family-friendly floors for your home

Family-friendly floors written in partnership with Luxury Flooring.

When it comes to making the right kind of choices for your family, you may not think that the type of floor you have is all that important, but it is! Your floor takes a lot of hits, especially where kids are involved, but can you have a stylish floor with little ones running around? Of course! You don’t have to compromise style for practicality. In our home we have a mix of solid wood flooring, carpet, laminate, and tile! We’ve left everything the way it was when we bought it, but we’d like to get the carpet replaced with wood eventually.

To help you make the best choice for your family and your home we’ve whittled down 3 favorite family-friendly floors…

Laminate Flooring
Laminate is still one of the most popular flooring choices, not just for family homes, but any home in general. The great thing about laminate flooring is it is designed to replicate a real wood floor, but at a much cheaper price. It also comes without the pressure having to maintain and protect from any scuffs or blemishes. When it comes to family life, nothing is guaranteed to stay spotless for long (right?!),which is why it’s important for something to be easy to clean and maintain. Trust us, it
doesn’t come much easier than laminate.

If you do get any spills or messes, they can be easily wiped away and it will look like nothing ever happened! For day to day cleaning, all that is required is a simple sweep with a broom. For a deeper clean you can always use a warm, damp mop or cloth. Of course the amount of times you clean your floor using this method is dependent on how messy your floor gets! Another great thing about laminate flooring is that it’s made in layers with a protective top layer, so it’s much more resistant to
scratches and scuffs than real wood.

Solid Wood Flooring
If you don’t mind spending a little more on your floor then you should definitely look into solid wood flooring. This is more than just a floor, it’s a lifelong investment in your home that will probably outlive the house itself! Often described as the ‘ultimate family-friendly’ floor, solid wood is one of the most durable materials available on the market and will definitely stand the test of not only time, but of your little ones too! The most highly recommended types of timber used in solid wood flooring are usually oak or walnut, both of which are really strong materials and easy to clean and maintain, too.

When it comes to real wood there are often more things to consider than just the type of wood you want. What kind of finish do you want the wood to have? There are two main choices—lacquered and oiled—but each have their own pros and cons when it
comes to family life. Lacquered finish floors require very little maintenance, but they do scratch easier than oiled floors and the scratches are more visible, too. The oiled finish on a floor gives protection to both the inside and outside of the wood because the oil actually penetrates it and provides long-term protection as well as a protective layer on the surface. As a result, scratches are less visible on oiled floors, but this does not mean they are indestructible either. The downside of oiled floors is that they do require a little maintenance of reapplying the oil finish once a year. So if you’re looking for a floor that can be installed and left to do its job then this may not be the finish for you!

Vinyl Flooring
Probably the most inexpensive type of flooring on this list, vinyl is a great value for the money. Because of the way that it is manufactured (or should we say baked?) by using either felt or foam vinyl, it provides a soft surface, which is ideal for homes with smaller children! As mentioned previously, vinyl is one of the cheapest flooring options available but when properly installed it can last for over 20 years! Definitely cost effective! Of course this also means that you and your family need to
take care of the floor, too, but that shouldn’t be too difficult—once it has been installed, vinyl requires little maintenance and can be cleaned relatively easily, too.

Those are our top 3 family-friendly floors—what do you have in your home or what do you want to get?

Family-friendly floors written in partnership with Luxury Flooring.