Walk into any home improvement store and the flooring aisle can feel overwhelming. Hundreds of products across three major categories, each with its own installation requirements, price points, and performance trade-offs. This guide breaks down the differences between hardwood, laminate, and vinyl plank flooring, explains how to measure your space accurately, and shows you exactly how much material to order so you do not run short or massively overbuy.
These three flooring types dominate the residential market, and each has a clear ideal use case.
Solid hardwood is real wood milled from a single piece and can be sanded and refinished multiple times over its lifetime. It adds genuine resale value and has a warmth that synthetic products struggle to replicate. The drawbacks are cost (typically $8 to $15 per square foot installed), sensitivity to moisture, and the need to acclimate the boards to your home's humidity before installation. Hardwood is best for living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms, not bathrooms or below-grade basements.
Laminate is a composite product with a photographic wood-grain layer under a hard wear layer. Modern laminate looks convincingly like wood and costs $3 to $7 per square foot installed. It is more scratch-resistant than hardwood and handles moderate moisture better, though it should not be used in rooms that see standing water. It cannot be refinished. When the wear layer is gone, you replace the floor. It is an excellent choice for high-traffic areas, households with pets, and anyone on a budget.
Luxury vinyl plank is the fastest-growing flooring category for good reason. It is 100 percent waterproof, extremely durable, and at $4 to $9 per square foot installed, sits between laminate and hardwood in price. LVP is appropriate for every room in the house including bathrooms, kitchens, and basements. It is also the most forgiving to install over a slightly imperfect subfloor. The main limitation is that high heat can cause it to expand or buckle, so avoid south-facing sunrooms or rooms that get very hot in summer without climate control.
Measure the length and width of each room in feet and multiply to get square footage. For a plain rectangular room this is simple, but most homes have closets, alcoves, and bay windows that require extra attention.
Always include closet floors in your measurement. The flooring runs continuously from the main room into the closet. Measure each closet separately (length times width) and add it to the room total. Do the same for any alcoves, window seats, or bump-outs. It is easy to forget a coat closet and then find yourself short by 15 square feet at installation.
Break L-shaped rooms into two rectangles. Measure each rectangle separately, calculate the square footage of each, and add them together. For rooms with angled walls or bay windows, measure the bounding rectangle (the largest rectangular box the room fits inside) and use that as your base measurement. The overage this adds will be absorbed by your waste factor.
Flooring is sold in boxes that cover a fixed square footage, so you will always need to round up to the nearest box. Beyond that, you need a waste buffer to account for cut pieces at walls, damaged planks discovered during installation, and pattern matching. For a standard straight-lay installation (planks running parallel to the longest wall) in a rectangular room, add 10 percent. For a diagonal installation, add 15 percent. For rooms with many angles, offsets, or stair installations, add up to 20 percent. Herringbone or chevron patterns with LVP or laminate require 15 to 20 percent overage because the angled cuts waste the ends of many planks. Always keep any leftover boxes after installation. Stored in a climate-controlled space, they are invaluable for future repairs.
Wood and wood-composite flooring products expand and contract with changes in humidity and temperature. If you install hardwood or laminate boards that have not adjusted to your home's conditions, you risk gaps opening between planks in winter or buckling in summer. Solid hardwood needs 3 to 5 days of acclimation in the room where it will be installed. Open the boxes and stack them loosely to allow air circulation. Engineered hardwood typically needs 48 to 72 hours. Most laminate manufacturers call for 48 hours. LVP generally requires little to no acclimation because it is dimensionally stable, though leaving it in the room overnight to reach ambient temperature is still good practice. Check your specific product's installation guide, as requirements vary.
No flooring product can correct a bad subfloor. Before installing any floating floor (laminate or LVP), check the subfloor for flatness using a long straightedge or a level. The acceptable tolerance for most floating floors is no more than 3/16 of an inch over a 10-foot span. High spots can be sanded down; low spots can be filled with floor leveling compound. For hardwood, which is typically nailed or glued, the subfloor must also be structurally sound and free of squeaks. Fix any loose subfloor panels with screws before the new floor goes down. You cannot fix a squeak after the fact without removing the new flooring.
One of the most common ordering mistakes is forgetting to account for multiple rooms. Many homeowners measure the main living area, then realize at the store that they also want to do the hallway and front entry. Measure every room and space you intend to cover before you go to the store. Another common error is buying from different production lots. Flooring color and texture can vary between batches. If you need to buy a second batch to finish the job, there may be a visible difference at the transition point. Buy everything you need in a single purchase. Finally, do not skip the underlayment. Most floating floors require a thin foam or felt underlayment for sound dampening and moisture protection, and skipping it voids many product warranties.
