Pet-Friendly Flooring: The Best Flooring Options for Homes with Pets
February 7, 2024
Pets are a great company and they always manage to put a smile on our faces. They bring so much joy to our lives, but sometimes, they can be a handful. Indoor pets can cause some damage to your home, including your floors.
From scratches to urine stains, it’s natural for you to worry about your floors if you have pets. But if you choose the right floors, you won’t have to worry about the damage your pets might cause.
When choosing flooring for pets, you have to consider various factors, such as durability, resistance to scratches, stain and water resistance, and a texture that keeps your pet comfortable and safe. That being said, here are the best flooring options for homes with pets.
Luxury Vinyl Flooring
Vinyl flooring is an excellent option if you have a home with pets because it’s durable, water-resistant, scratch-resistant, and long-lasting.
Vinyl flooring can replicate the look of natural materials like stone or tile, with of course, the benefit of unmatched durability and resilience. It is made up of several layers, including a photographic layer and a wear layer.
This photographic layer makes it possible for you to choose from a wide variety of designs, while the wear layer protects the surface, increases durability, and makes it last longer. Vinyl flooring is also easy to clean and maintain. Unlike other flooring options, there’s no need to adopt any special cleaning methods.
An added bonus would be the wide range of styles and patterns it has to offer. With luxury vinyl flooring, you won’t have to sacrifice style to get the best flooring for dogs. You can have both lovely aesthetics and durability, perfect for a home with pets.
Engineered Hardwood Flooring
Another pet-friendly flooring you can consider is engineered hardwood flooring. If you do not want to sacrifice the look of genuine hardwood floors, then engineered wood flooring is an excellent choice.
Its material mimics the appearance of genuine natural wood, and offers enhanced durability, making it an excellent choice for homes with pets. While it may have the appearance of natural hardwood on the top, engineered hardwood flooring lasts longer. It also provides more warmth and comfort.
Engineered hardwood also comes in a wide range of tones, colors, and patterns, giving you a lot of options to choose from. So, it offers both style and strength.
It is important to note that while engineered hardwood can handle moisture, it’s not as water-resistant compared to vinyl flooring. So, make sure not to let liquid stay on your floors for a long time!
Tile Flooring
Tile flooring is another type of flooring to consider for pets with homes. Tiles are hard and durable, water-resistant, and easy to clean, making them an ideal choice for a home with pets. Tiles can withstand spills and wet mops and are less susceptible to moisture compared to luxury vinyl flooring. They also don’t stain.
The disadvantage, however, with tile flooring is that it may be less comfortable for your pets compared to other types of flooring. Tiles may be cold and hard on your pet’s joints, and they can be slippery. So, for your pet’s comfort, you can put rugs and mats for them.
Bamboo Flooring
Bamboo flooring is pet-friendly and eco-friendly. It’s known to be one of the strongest floorings, as it offers extreme durability. With its strength, it’s more resistant to pet scratches and dents than other types of flooring. While it can be sensitive to moisture, bamboo flooring is easy to clean and maintain, making it an ideal choice for homes with pets.
Laminate Flooring
Laminate flooring is another option for homes with pets. It can resist scratches caused by sharp claws and tolerate wear and tear without showing indications of damage. It’s also low maintenance and easy to clean.
Cork Flooring
Cork flooring may not be the most durable on the list, but it does offer a lot of other benefits. For one, due to its natural softness, it offers a comfortable surface for pets.
It’s also naturally antimicrobial, which means that it can help keep your home free of mold, bacteria, and other allergens. Additionally, cork flooring is also sound-absorbing, so it can reduce the noise of your pets running around.
Floor Maintenance: Keep Your Pet-Friendly Floors Looking Good as New
When you decide to have pets in your home, it’s important to choose the right flooring. However, you can also take some actions to prevent or minimize damages from happening to your floors. To keep your furry friends happy and your floors looking great, consider doing the following:
Put Rugs and Carpets Over Your Floors
To prevent scratches on your floors, it’s best to put rugs and carpets in areas where your pet frequently stays, like where they usually play or sleep. By doing so, should they scratch something, the scratches would be on the fabric, and not your floors.
Keep Your Pet’s Nails Trimmed
Don’t rely on the fact that the flooring you’ve chosen is scratch-resistant. Avoid scratches caused by sharp claws or nails by clipping your pet’s nails regularly.
Wipe Pet Urine and Clean Spills Immediately
Even though you may have picked flooring that’s water or stain-resistant, it’s always best to wipe pet urine and clean up spills as soon as possible. Don’t let liquids stay on your floors for so long.
Put a Mat Under Water Bowls
To avoid excess water on your floors, put a mat under the water bowls of your pets. Doing so will help avoid spills from staining your precious floors.
Avoid Dirt with Doormats
Your pets could also be playing outdoors, and when they come inside your home, they could be bringing in dirt. To avoid excess dirt on your floors, you could put a doormat at entrances in your home.
Contact Nordic Homeworx for Flooring Advice
You may be a pet owner looking for the best flooring for your home. At Nordic Homeworx, we offer a wide selection of flooring options that are durable, stylish, and pet-friendly. We also have flooring consultants ready to guide you and assist you with any questions or concerns you may have.
Need flooring advice? Contact us today!
