Choosing the right bathroom flooring for your home is not as straightforward as you may think. Obviously, you want a floor that looks stunning and complements the rest of the room. But when it comes to bathrooms, any flooring has to be able to withstand water and humidity, be easy to clean and of course safe to use.

Here, Lloyd Wells – working with Sussex-based vinyl flooring specialists Harvey Maria – has given Just Do Property the run down on why luxury vinyl and rubber flooring are the best choice for family bathroom.

Before you rush off to buy your favourite ceramic tiles, guided by interior design trends and chosen colour schemes for your bathroom, stop right there. Have you asked yourself you exactly will be using the room? In bathrooms more than any other rooms in the house, it’s essential to match the flooring material to the needs of the occupants.

Two groups in particular come to attention:

1.     Families with young children

Bathtime can be a lot of fun and invariably involves splashes and puddles of water during use. Water on the floor can be slippery, and if your little darlings slip and fall over on a hard stone floor, they may seriously hurt themselves.

Rubber and LVT (luxury vinyl tiles) flooring, on the other hand, offer the same hardwearing, water resistant properties as ceramics, porcelain or natural stone – but the material is much softer in case the kids take a tumble.

What’s more, there’s a huge choice of colours and patterns available to give your bathroom a colourful, fun and thoroughly modern design scheme that really appeals to the younger members of the family.

2.     Elderly family members

At the other end of the age spectrum, practical and slip resistant flooring becomes even more important for safety reasons. If you’re looking to install bathroom flooring that is soft and warm underfoot, offers good levels of slip resistance and is easy to maintain, hard stone flooring is definitely not the answer.

LVT flooring comes in a huge array of finishes; it can even me made to look like wood or stone flooring so there’s no reason to compromise on style. Rubber is a very hygienic choice but make sure you choose a product with a high slip resistance rating. Engineered wood floors can look fabulous and are softer and warmer than tiles but do require a little more effort to look after.

Ceramic tiles and natural stone flooring are often hailed as the obvious choice for bathrooms. However, if you have small children or elderly relatives who use the bathrooms in your house, these are not the most practical materials to use. Luxury vinyl tiles or rubber flooring is not only kinder and more practical to use, they can add a design-savvy touch to your home that you simply cannot get with hard stone floors.

Luxury Vinyl Tiles (LVT)

Vinyl bathroom flooring has come a long way since the days of cheap vinyl sheeting imprinted with unconvincing wood or stone patterns. Today’s LVT products are in a different league and offer a pretty good likeness to the real thing.

The benefits of LVT flooring include

 
·       Highly water resistant material

·       Hardwearing quality, with manufacturers’ guarantees of 12-20 years

·       Thinner than stone flooring, making it much easier to retrofit

·       Soft-tread comfort flooring

·       Warmer underfoot compared to porcelain or stone

·       Can be used with underfloor heating

·       Vast choice of exciting colours, patterns and finishes to complement any bathroom design scheme

LVT flooring installations are best carried out by a specialist although DIY friendly product and click systems are also available. For best results now and in the future, it is advisable to install the flooring before the sanitaryware so it sits underneath it, rather than cutting around it. If the floor is installed professionally, silicone sealant should around the edges should not be necessary.

Rubber Bathroom Flooring

Rubber flooring is not a new thing; it’s been around for industrial applications for a great many years. Available in wonderfully vibrant colours and highly water resistant, rubber can be the ideal product for a family bathroom, especially one that is used daily by small people.

Combined with simple white walls and contemporary bathroom fittings, rubber flooring can add a touch of uber modern design that’s perfect for young families.

The benefits of rubber flooring include

·       A tough, hardwearing and very durable flooring product

·       Warm and soft underfoot with shock absorbent qualities

·       A super hygienic surface that is stain resistant and easy to clean

·       Available in a vast array of colours, patterns and textures to suit every home

It is important to bear in mind that rubber can be slippery when wet, so it’s best to choose a product with a high slip resistance rating. Rubber can be fitted as tiles or in a single sheet. While tiles are easier to deal with in terms of patch repairs, sheet flooring is more hygienic as it impervious to bacterial ingress.