Tile flooring has become more and more common in living rooms, and you’re looking to follow that trend. Maybe you already have tile floors, or perhaps you love the durability and modern look they create, but you’re not quite sure how to bring your concept from the drawing board to your living room. Here are some Tile Flooring Ideas For Your Living Room to help.
1) Patterned
Tile flooring doesn’t have to be the same square tiles that you’ve seen in everyone’s bathrooms and kitchens. Your living room is one of the most prominent rooms in the house, and you want guests to see a beautiful and unique one. To make something different, you can lay the tiles in patterns, but if you’re doing it yourself…it probably seems like too complex a project. Don’t worry! We’ve found this guide to help you prepare and lay patterned tile.
2) Painted
Many people are stuck in the pattern of thinking that you have to use whatever color and texture tiles you can find in the store. If you have old tiles that you don’t like or can’t find the tile color you want, you can actually paint your tiles any color that fits your space. If you have ceramic tile, you can use this Driven By Decor tutorial to paint it a single color that matches your living room concept or your other decor.
3) Large Format
Tile is most common in bathrooms and kitchens, which are typically much smaller than living rooms. If you’re looking to cover your living room without creating a crowded and overly busy look, you’ll probably want larger tiles than the ones you’d use in a kitchen or bathroom. Since laying large format tiles is different from laying small ones, we found this CustomBuildingProd video to show you some tricks and techniques for laying large format tiles yourself.
4) Hexagon Wood Grain Tile
You don’t want your living room tile to look like something that belongs in a bathroom, but how do you make it unique? One way to do that’s to get differently shaped tile or to get different textures. Wood floors are common in living rooms, but if you want a standard wood look, you could lay a genuine wood floor instead of tile. These tiles from Amazon are something else; they’re hexagonal and look like the cross ends of logs rather than having a standard wood grain. This gives them a unique wood look that typical hardwood won’t get you.
5) Area Rug
One thing to remember about tile and living rooms is that a living room is typically a comfortable, soft space, and tile is hard and often cold. Area rugs can make those tile floors more comfortable, and if you’re just looking to spruce up some old tile, they can be an inexpensive way to cover it up. If you love your tile, choose an area rug that looks good with it but also keeps you comfortable and keeps your feet warm if you like to walk around without shoes.
6) Floral Baroque
More than anything, you’re probably looking to avoid a standard square tile that’ll make your living room look like the bathroom or kitchen. Of course, that just means you need to find the right, nonstandard tile choice. These floral baroque hexagonal tiles from Amazon are a bold choice and certainly differ from typical designs. The unique shape, pattern, and colors will create a vibrant living room, and people probably won’t even notice that it’s tile. This way, you’ll have a durable and decorative floor!
7) Choose The Right Direction
This is probably the most important idea when you start laying tiles, no matter which ones you choose. Make sure to lay the tile in the correct direction. While not all tiles are directional, many tiles will have a sheen that looks different at different angles. The manufacturer should mark this with an arrow on the packaging; just make sure the arrows all point the same way! You’ll need to decide which way you want to lay the whole group of tiles, though. This guide should help you decide which direction to apply your pattern and sheen.
8) Bohemian
Since living rooms are often a more expressive space than bathrooms, kitchens, and other places you’ll typically have tile, nothing is stopping you from going bold with your tile choice! Use your tile to accent and enhance whatever theme you have in the living room, whether that’s farmhouse, cabin, modern, or something else. For example, if you have a bohemian look, a bold and colorful bohemian tile like this from Amazon would be perfect and would likely be a topic of conversation for all your guests!
9) Wood Look Tile Planks
If you want the durability and other properties of tile but don’t want something that’ll look unusual in a living room, you can always choose wood look tile planks. These are laid similarly to wood and will look a lot like hardwood, but the costs and ease of installation will be more like tile. We even found some advice for installing porcelain wood look tile in this OBF Tile video. They’ll help you figure out how to install it yourself, from which thinset to use to how to make the pattern look authentic and attractive.
10) Smooth Stone Slab Look
Tile is popular in living rooms now, so if you’re trying to create a modern design, this is definitely a good way to go! One way to create a sleek modern look is to get tiles like these that are designed to look like a smooth stone slab. This will create a clean look that matches the clean lines of a lot of modern spaces. A gray like this will go with black, white, and gray decorations, so it’s perfect if you have a grayscale or black and white theme.
11) Decorative Tiles
Your tile floor isn’t just something you walk on; it’s an integral part of your decorating. With many types of flooring, you probably just pick a color that matches your color scheme, but tile is like an area rug. You can pick a pattern and use it to add a splash of color. This article from Better Homes and Gardens gives an idea of how you can decorate using your floor tile so that it’s like an accent wall for your room, only on the floor!
12) Peel and Stick Vinyl Patterns
If you’re looking for a way to install tile yourself, ceramic or porcelain tile might not be your best option. They require a certain amount of skill, and they’re an expensive thing to get wrong! If you’re new to tile installation, peel and stick vinyl is the homeowner’s DIY-friendly option. Peel and stick tiles also come in various options, sometimes with more choices than traditional tiles! You can get a variety of patterns like this soft blue, beachy pattern from Amazon, or something even bolder, and install it yourself (or hire a contractor).
13) Offset
Straight lay tiles are probably the most typical, with grout lines that match up and create a grid pattern. Unfortunately, that pattern makes people think of traditional kitchens and bathrooms, and you probably don’t want your living room to look like a bathroom (or a kitchen, for that matter)! One way to combat this is to offset tiles so that the grout lines don’t create that grid look, so we found some tips for offsetting. Of course, you’ll still need to choose a pattern, but these tips will help with any offset DIY work.
14) Watch The Transition
If your living room and kitchen are adjacent, there’s one major decision you’ll probably have to make; how do you transition? If you have or want a tile kitchen, you’ll need to decide how to transition from your kitchen tile to your living room tile. Maybe you even want the same tile for both rooms. There are a few different ways to handle this transition from one room to the next, and we found this guide to help you plan it.
15) Herringbone
There are many ways to make your living room look unique, and laying the tiles out in patterns is probably one of the best ways to keep it from looking the same as any old kitchen or bathroom with a tile floor. A herringbone pattern is an attractive choice for a traditional room, but how do you make one? If you’re installing the tile yourself, you can use this Home Repair Tutor video to learn how to install a herringbone pattern.
16) Update Without Removing
If you don’t like your current living room tile but don’t want the hassle and expense of tearing up tile, there are ways to update it without removing the old flooring. You might even find the tile itself wasn’t the problem and that a little of the right kind of maintenance will make it look like a whole new place! You can use this article by Semco Florida to learn about things that you can lay over tile or simply ways to update the tile without even covering it!
17) Floor Pattern Tool
If you’re planning on installing tile on your own and don’t have a lot of tile flooring experience, it can be intimidating to lay out anything other than a straight square grid. You might be struggling to figure out how many tiles you need to buy, and without experience, you could easily find yourself without enough material! We found this online tool that’ll help estimate the number of tiles you’ll need for your chosen pattern. Remember, always round up! The general rule is to buy one box more than your estimate.
18) Wood Look Tile Squares
If you’re using tile for its durability and other properties but like the look of traditional wood floors for a living room, there are a couple of different ways to create a wood look with the tile. With tile squares like these, you can choose to make patterns instead of just a straight wood grain. For instance, you can rotate every other tile so that the wood grain is horizontal on some and vertical on others, thus creating a checkerboard-like pattern.
19) Materials
Is tile flooring worth it? You’re looking for something durable, but maybe you’re trying to decide between tile and a traditional hardwood floor? Like any project, tile has costs that the average homeowner might not know about. You can use a cost estimator like this to see if you can afford it or figure out how much to budget. Materials costs will be important since your living room is likely bigger than most rooms that are traditionally tiled.
20) Modern Peel and Stick
If you’re trying to create a modern look, sometimes simple black and white is the best option. You can get a simple black and white decal tile like this from Amazon and create a modern patterned floor, and even get creative with a single-color rug over it. This would be a neat way to reverse the typical order in which a patterned rug goes on top of a plain floor. Since these tiles are peel and stick, you can even install them yourself with less tile experience. Just make sure to follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
21) Painted Pattern
Almost everybody paints their walls, but paint isn’t something people typically think about for a floor. You can actually paint almost anything if you want to if you do it right. For example, The DIY Mommy painted her floor tiles around her fireplace with a lovely modern black and white pattern. If you like the idea, you can see how well they held up after a couple of years in this video and learn how to paint patterns on tiles yourself.
22) Black Marble
If you want a classy modern look, you might think that patterned tiles just don’t fit a living room the way they do, say, a kitchen. After all, everybody has their tastes, and if patterned black and white tile flooring doesn’t fit yours, how else can you create a modern look? Black marble can create a classy and consistent look that you don’t get with patterned tile. You can even see how this black marble tile from Amazon could blend and create the appearance of a single sheet of dark stone like it does in the photos they provide.
23) Diamond Parquet
If you want your living room to stay homey and comfortable, you’re probably looking for tiles that don’t resemble anything you’d traditionally see in bathrooms and kitchens. After all, a living room is an entirely different space, and you don’t want it to give a hard and utilitarian impression. These diamond parquet tiles can create a comfortable and warm impression since they’re warm-colored and look like wood, but the diamond parquet pattern makes them look different from a typical wood floor.
24) Checkerboard
If you want to bring back some retro designs, you can always create a checkerboard pattern. While these were popular in kitchens, you can combine a retro look with the boldness of modern design by using a checkerboard pattern in your living room. Since this is traditionally a kitchen design, we’d suggest adding an area rug to break up the checkerboarding a bit without losing the retro impression it gives. Red and brown or green and brown can create a cabin or forestry look, or black and white can create a modern-retro combination look.
25) Basketweave
One of the neat things about tiles is the variety of patterns you can create without the sawing and measuring you need to do with wood. One pattern that would be incredible in a living room is the basketweave pattern, whether you choose to lay large tiles in that pattern or buy tiles with a small basketweave pattern like these. These are probably the easier option, though we’d suggest hiring a contractor with tiling experience to make sure they look the way they’re supposed to when finished.
26) Trendy
Tiles are a modern trend, so if you’re trying to keep up with the latest trends, you’ll want to choose a tile and layout that fits the most up-to-date trends, too. You can create looks by imitating other materials and taking advantage of tile’s durability or design looks that are unique and can’t be made with anything other than tile. This Tile Shop article goes over the latest trends to help you figure out what in-fashion and attractive look fits your room.
27) Medium Oak Parquet
Tile is perfect for parquet patterns since they can be difficult to achieve with wood. With real wood, you’ll have to spend a lot of money on a contractor or take a lot of time to measure each individual piece, whereas, with tile, you can buy pieces like these that already have a parquet pattern. These ones are nice because you don’t even need to lay them out in a special pattern; just a standard grid will work since the parquet is built into the look of each tile.
Did any of these ideas help you decide how to update or install new tile flooring for your living room or help you find the tile you want to use? Please let us know in the comments below!