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Best dining room flooring ideas

Best dining room flooring ideas

Your dining room is one of the areas in your home that will regularly see a buzz of activity. Between midweek dinners and homework sessions, heart-to-hearts over a cuppa and everyone pitching in on a giant jigsaw puzzle – lots of life happens around a dining table! So, making sure your floor can keep up with the daily hustle and bustle is key.

Our handy guide will help you find the right flooring for your dining room – whether it be vinyl, luxury vinyl tile, engineered wood, laminate, or carpet. We’ll explore a range of dining room floor ideas and options, comparing the potential benefits and considerations to help you find the best flooring for your home. After all, you’ll want flooring that lasts for a long time. Let’s dig in.

In this guide:

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What is the best flooring for dining rooms?

The best dining room floor for you will usually tick the following boxes:

  • It fits your ideal budget
  • It’ll look good for a long time
  • It’ll suit your interior style

When considering your favourite dining room flooring ideas, picture each option alongside your decor and furniture. Ask yourself: how do you want them to work together? How important is it to you that it’s hard or soft underfoot, absorbs noise, is pet-friendly, or lasts for a very long time?

For instance, if spills and accidents are part of daily life in your dining room (such as if you have young children or pets who eat in your dining room) it’s worth considering laminate or vinyl flooring. Both options are notoriously easy to maintain and keep clean.

We’ll break down and compare each of these features against different dining room flooring options below.

Dining room flooring ideas

Some of the best dining room flooring ideas include carpet, laminate, luxury vinyl tile and engineered wood. Let’s take a closer look at the features and benefits to help you decide which one might suit your home best.

Carpet

Carpet is one of our softest and warmest options, so it works best for dining rooms you spend a lot of time in or dining rooms that are connected to your living room. It provides a lot of softness under your feet, so it’s very comfy to walk on and rest your feet on as you sit at your dining table. This is a classic choice for a dining room because it’s a great sound absorber (ideal for flats) and it works well in medium to low-traffic areas.

What’s the best carpet for dining room areas?

Perhaps your dining room is more formal, and you have a kitchen diner that you use more often. If so, you might want to consider investing in something like a warm, high-quality wool-blend carpet, knowing that it will look good for years to come. Go for a short to medium pile twist carpet or woven carpet – this will ensure the fibres don’t snag as you move your dining chair in and out from the table. If your dining room is a little busier and people pass through it a lot, you can always opt for a stain-resistant carpet that’s a bit more hard-wearing.

Choose carpet if:

  • You value super softness underfoot (or under table!)
  • You’d like to elevate the space with a luxurious feel
  • You want extra sound absorption
  • You like to choose from a wide range of colours and textures
  • You don’t mind the extra maintenance required for cleaning and vacuuming
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Laminate

High up the list of hard-wearing flooring for dining room spaces is the ever-popular laminate flooring. This type of flooring is durable and cost-effective, making it fantastic for family homes and properties with pets. No need to worry about stains or accidents with laminate flooring, especially when you pick from our scratch and stain resistant collections.

Laminate is an attractive alternative to genuine wood flooring, available in a wide variety of finishes, colours, stains and styles. As one of our favourite flooring ideas for living and dining room combo spaces, laminate wood can also imitate the appearance of stone or tile. This makes it perfect if you want a cohesive look to flow from your kitchen into your dining room, or if you have a dining nook in your living room.

If you're struggling to choose between the different types of flooring on offer, our laminate vs carpet guide could help you pick the right flooring for you.

Choose laminate flooring if:

  • You love the effect of genuine hardwood flooring without the heavy price tag
  • You’re looking for something scratch and mess resistant for your pet or family-friendly home
  • You’re looking for wood-effect flooring that flows from your kitchen to your dining room
  • You might want to install laminate flooring yourself
Browse Dining Room Laminate

Luxury vinyl tiles

Luxury vinyl tile (LVT) is a great flooring option for dining room areas that see a lot of traffic, or for those who prefer to keep maintenance simple. With a huge collection of styles to suit your dining space, it’s a great alternative to ceramic tiles and genuine wood.

LVT is known for being incredibly hardwearing, available in herringbone wood, marble, ornate Victorian tile, and stone-effect styles. Thanks to its durable layers of high-quality PVC (polyvinyl chloride) with a clear protective PU (polyurethane) top coat, it’s water resistant and easy to clean, making it one of our favourite kitchen diner flooring ideas. Again, for more help choosing between different types of flooring, discover our guide on vinyl vs laminate.

Choose luxury vinyl flooring if:

  • You’d like the choice between realistic stone, tile, and wood-effect designs
  • You need extra resistance for water and mess-prone areas
  • You’re looking for scratch resistant flooring suitable for pets
  • You’re happy to invest in quality dining room flooring that could last up to 30 years
  • You want multi-purpose flooring for kitchen diner spaces
Browse Dining Room LVT Flooring
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Vinyl

Endlessly versatile, vinyl flooring is another affordable alternative to real wood, tiles and laminate options. Water resistant and easy to clean, vinyl comes in large flexible sheets on a roll rather than planks or tiles. It’s the ideal flooring for kitchen diner spaces if you want the look of wood flooring for less. Plus, it’s available in just as many designs and styles.

However, something to bear in mind with vinyl is that it can be more cushioned than laminate or LVT. Though it feels soft and sleek underfoot, it could mark or tear more easily, so it’s something to be conscious of, particularly when moving dining furniture about.

Adding a large area rug beneath your dining table and chairs is a quick and simple fix, protecting your vinyl floors from scrapes and furniture impressions.

Choose vinyl flooring if:

  • You want affordable wood or tile-effect flooring designs that can flow into a kitchen diner or utility space
  • You want flooring that’s quick and simple to install
  • You prefer flooring that’s water resistant and easy to mop, sweep, and clean
  • You want something with more sound absorption than laminate or engineered wood
  • You like the soft and warm feeling underfoot compared to firm laminate
Browse Dining Room Vinyl Flooring

Engineered wood

Luxury options such as a tiled or real wood floor always create a 'wow' factor in a formal dining room, and you can create the warmth and character of hardwood with engineered wood flooring. In addition to having a top layer of genuine wood, engineered wood has multiple layers of composite materials underneath, making it both practical and low-maintenance. Though engineered wood may be more of an investment, it’s long-lasting and can be sustainably sourced.

Choose engineered wood flooring if:

  • You want flooring that looks and feels like genuine wood – because it is!
  • You want the option for dramatic herringbone and chevron installation styles
  • You’re happy to invest in dining room flooring that stands the test of time
  • You’re not worried about sound absorption
  • You want to choose from eco-friendly options made from sustainably sourced wood
Browse Engineered Wood Flooring

Dining room flooring comparison

Still undecided? We know how challenging it can be to choose between so many options, which is where our free samples come in handy. Different types of flooring vary in cost, too, so ensuring there are no surprises will make the process easier. To get a better idea of how much it could cost for new flooring in your dining room, use our flooring calculators on every product page.

In the meantime, take a look at our comparison table below to help you find the best flooring for your dining room based on your needs.

 

Carpet

Laminate

Vinyl

LVT

Engineered Wood

Warm

Quiet

Durable

Low-cost

Comfortable

Water resistant

Easy-to-clean

Discuss your dining room flooring ideas with Tapi

Whether you love the idea of durable luxury vinyl to suit your busy home or a cosy carpet you can step onto every morning, we’ve got flooring ideas to suit every room on our Ideas Hub. Meanwhile, our handy guide to 'What type of flooring suits your decor?’ can help you understand what style feels the most ‘you’.

Explore our wide range of flooring samples at your local Tapi store, or book one of our free home visits to have a Tapi expert show you different options at home. We’ll help you find the ideal flooring for your dining room, exploring everything from flooring characteristics, costs, and features. Find your dream dining room flooring today.

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Published: 06-03-2023

Last reviewed: 24-11-2025