Best Flooring Options For A Vacation Rental or Beach House
We go over your best flooring choices for a vacation rental or second home that sees a lot of foot traffic!
If you own a rental property, then you already know how important it is to strike a balance between the cost, quality and affordability of its amenities so that your tenants are satisfied with the experience and so you’re not breaking the bank maintaining the property when you turn it over week after week. However, striking this balance is perhaps even more important when it comes to beach house rentals, where the likes of sand and moisture are likely to be tracked in on a daily basis.
Noting this, you likely aren’t going to install the type of flooring in a beach rental as you would in your normal home. In a beach rental, it would behoove you to install a low-maintenance, durable and hard-surface flooring to make cleanup a breeze. In other words, you definitely don’t want to install carpet when you’d likely have to invest in regular, professional, deep cleanings to remove sand that has become embedded into the fibers.
Enough about what to avoid, here’s a closer look at the six best flooring types we suggest for beachy vacation rentals:
6 Best Flooring Types for a Vacation Beach Rental
Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT)
This is among the most popular flooring types for any type of rental, and for a variety of reasons. One, it’s very easy to install, as some styles literally just click into place above the baseboard. Two, it’s very durable – so durable that even coarse sand that gets tracked onto it won’t easily damage the flooring.
Though this can be a more costly flooring option for a rental property, it won’t scuff up easily and is water and moisture resistant. It’s the highest quality type of vinyl tile, making it an ideal option for more luxurious vacation rentals.
Tile
Though standard tile is hard and may not be the most comfortable surface to walk on for extended periods of time, it’s an extremely durable flooring option that’s easy to clean and maintain, and it also resists water. Another big bonus to tile is that it’s available in just about every color you could want.
Tile has been a historically popular flooring option in kitchens and bathrooms, and in vacation properties it can make for an ideal selection around home entry and exit points to capture any sand or debris that gets tracked in from outside.
Linoleum
Linoleum flooring is better suited for standard rental properties. While the flooring is waterproof and durable, it isn’t the most luxurious option. Also, it often requires replacement much sooner than many of the other styles on this list.
One nice thing about linoleum is that it’s a “green” flooring option, which can be a selling point for your rental property for more eco-conscious tourists. For example, linoleum doesn’t emit any volatile organic compounds (VOCs), it’s constructed from renewable materials and it’s biodegradable at the end of its usable life.
Laminate
It’s more affordable and easier to install than hardwood, even if it may not last for the several generations that traditional hardwood floors do. Laminate flooring is still durable and ideal for high-traffic areas, including your beach house rental that’s likely to see new visitors week after week. Laminate is surging in popularity in the rental home market, largely because of its mix of durability and affordability.
It’s also extremely easy to install. One of the few downsides to laminate flooring is that it’s not as resistant to moisture as some of the other options on this list, so you’ll want to make sure to mop up spills or water tracked in from the beach or pool in a timely manner.
Stone
If you’re really aiming for a high-quality, luxury rental, we’d suggest stone flooring. Stone is among the most expensive flooring options you can select, however it’s also among the most durable and beautiful flooring types as well. It’s durable, doesn’t wear easily and – we’ll say it again – looks great.
Engineered Hardwood
We’ll round out this list with engineered hardwood, which has the look and durability of real wood floors – but without many of the drawbacks. Many people love the elegant look of natural wood floors, however when you’re dealing with conventional hardwood, you also have to take into account factors such as warping from changes in humidity and wood rot from moisture or spills that penetrate it. On this note, hardwood is not the best choice for a beach house rental.
However, engineered hardwood is the next best thing. While this tends to be a more expensive flooring option for a rental property, it has all the benefits of conventional hardwood (durability, ease of maintenance, long life, etc.) without any of the drawbacks. Above all, it’s a beautiful, elegant flooring option that can really make a great first impression on guests.
