If you’re looking to add style, colour and texture to your rooms, then a patterned floor is a great way to do so. However, to avoid any clashes in your decor and ensure your flooring fits in with your lifestyle, it’s essential to choose the right pattern and type. 

To help you narrow down the options and set the tone you want in your home, we’ve put together some advice on how to select and install patterned floors that suit your decor and room. 

Types of Patterned Flooring

Several hard floor types come in a range of patterns and effects. This means you can find flooring that both compliments your decor and has features that suit your lifestyle, e.g. being easy to clean or durable. These include:

  • Luxury Vinyl Tiles (LVT) offer a premium look and feel. Laid in separate planks to create patterns that realistically recreate tiles or wood, its also durable and easy to maintain 
  • Vinyl is a single sheet of layered plastic floor. Affordable, waterproof and resistant to most wear and tear, it means you can lay a patterned floor without the hassle of matching up planks or tiles
  • Tiles are made from hard materials like ceramic, porcelain and stone, they’re available in a variety of colours, shapes and patterns which are laid together to create a stylish, sophisticated overall look

Pattern Types by Room

To tie in with your decor, the patterns you choose for your flooring need to tie in with the same colours, motifs or themes of your walls, furniture or any ornaments. It also needs to reflect the overall feeling you want to create in your particular room. For example, floors in kitchens need to be easy to clean and maintain, while living rooms need to feel comfortable and warm. 

Hallways 

Putting a patterned floor in your hallway is the perfect opportunity to make a statement as soon as guests enter your home. The type of flooring you choose needs to be hard wearing to keep up with the high levels of foot traffic. While the pattern can set the theme for the rest of your home, add interest to an otherwise blank space or create a welcoming flow in your entrance way. 

Some of the most common patterns chosen for hallways include: 

  • Herringbone arrangements of real wood or LVT look sophisticated will pulling the eye into the space
  • Tile effects can add style and bring colour into the hallway using flowers, stars and geometric shapes 
  • A checkerboard pattern mixes up coloured and white tiles, which adds interest and draws people in

Kitchen 

Kitchen floors need to be easy to clean and durable enough to take stains, splashes and good levels of foot traffic. That doesn’t mean you need to stick with a simple wood or stone effect floor, however. Particularly if your units are a single colour and contemporary design, you could reflect similar shades and angles in the flooring pattern with a tile effect or checkerboard. This will add warmth and interest in an otherwise blank, untextured space. 

Bathroom 

With so many hard, clean surfaces, bathrooms can risk feeling unwelcoming or cold. Tile effects such as geometric shapes, mosaics or checkerboards that include tiles with warm, neutral shades can counteract this. Even a very subtle fleck of colour or stone effect can add texture and make bathrooms more inviting, stylish spaces. LVT and vinyl floors do this while being waterproof, warm and comfortable underfoot. 

Bedrooms and Living Rooms 

Hard floors might not be a natural choice for spaces where you’re looking for comfort and warmth. However, choosing a patterned floor that doesn’t make the room feel too busy or overwhelming can create a luxurious style. A herringbone wood effect or real wood floor in an oak or dark shade will look sophisticated and soft when combined with soft rugs and textiles.

How to Choose a Complementary Floor

It’s natural to worry that choosing the wrong patterned floor will make a room’s decor feel overwhelming and uncomfortable. However, by keeping a few key tips in mind, you can ensure that your final flooring enhances your space and creates impact.

  • Match up the shades of your plain walls and floor patterns or opt for a hue that’s complimentary on the colour wheel
  • Don’t use patterns on both your floor and walls, with the only exception being small sections of a bathroom or kitchen
  • Bold floor colours could quickly fall out of fashion or taste, so opt for neutral, earthy shades such as terracotta, dusky browns or muted greens
  • If in doubt, go for subtle textures, simple shapes or a monochrome floor that uses complimentary or subtly contrasting colours
  • To add bold accents without being too over-the-top, use accessories like rugs, wall art or ornaments that pop

Do Patterned Floors Make Rooms Feel Smaller?

Patterned floors that are too intricate, colourful or busy can make an already small room feel even smaller. So when you’re choosing your pattern, keep the size of your space in mind. Large areas can handle more complex designs like mosaics, flowers or geometrics. While choosing checkerboards, herringbones or simple visuals for small rooms can create the illusion of more space. 

The Art of Laying Patterned Flooring

If you’re laying a patterned floor, you need to make sure that it flows naturally and consistently, as any placement errors will be glaringly obvious. For example, if you mislay a coloured tile in a checkerboard where there should be a white one, this will immediately stand out as odd. The same goes for a patterned tile that’s been orientated incorrectly. 

As well as preparing the subfloor correctly, laying the tiles out before you fix them down can be helpful to ensure you’ve got your orientation correct. You can use chalk to mark out useful reference points or even draw a grid across the whole floor. Laying from the centre of the room outwards can also be useful. 

Certain patterns, like herringbone or checkerboards, need a bit more experience and guidance, so it's worth getting further advice before you start. 

Find the Perfect Patterned Floor

Patterned floors, if chosen correctly, can add interest and style to your room. By following the tips above and getting expert advice, you can find a design and flooring type that best suits your needs. To get a run down on the full range of options available or get advice on how best to install your floor, give our expert team a call.