Living room tile ideas that look good on any budget

Arcelo's Sicily Greige copies the soft, cross-cut pattern of real travertine, but it's porcelain, so it costs a fraction of natural stone and never needs sealing. The colour is a warm greige with a soft grey undertone, sitting between cream and pale beige, with gentle veining and layered texture that shifts from tile to tile without any one piece standing out. Run it across an open-plan living and dining zone and the room reads as one calm, continuous floor.

It comes in a large 600x1200mm format, which means fewer grout lines and a more spacious look, handy in a smaller living room where you want a sense of space. The matte finish hides dust and footprints better than a polished tile, and being porcelain it shrugs off scratches from chair legs and resists stains from a knocked-over glass. Its style leans minimalist and Mediterranean, so it suits a modern Queensland home as easily as a more traditional one. Because it also works in a kitchen or bathroom, you can carry one floor right through the house.

Not every living room idea is about the floor. Fiteni's Casablanca is a glossy white ceramic square that turns a plain wall into a feature, whether that's the chimney breast above a fireplace, a shelving niche, a bookshelf backing, or the wall behind a mounted TV. Set in a neat grid, the high-gloss surface bounces light around and makes the whole corner feel brighter, which guests notice the moment they walk in.

Inspired by handmade Moroccan zellige, each tile carries a slight shade variation, so the wall has a soft, handcrafted texture instead of a flat, printed look. It suits a coastal or modern classic living room, and whether your taste runs bold or understated, the white and ivory tones keep it timeless rather than trend-led, so it won't date in a couple of years. Being ceramic, it's the cheapest of the four per square metre and an easy DIY job on a small feature wall. The trade-off with any gloss tile is that it shows fingerprints and dust more than a matte one, so it earns its place on a wall rather than a busy floor.

Getting the look right is the fun part. A few practical calls decide whether the floor still looks good in five years and whether it suits how you actually use the room.

Start with size. Large format tiles like 600x1200 give you fewer grout lines and a more seamless, spacious floor, which is why they've become increasingly popular for open living areas. In a small or oddly shaped room, though, very large tiles can mean more offcuts and waste, so measure up before you order and add around 10% for cuts and breakages.

Finish matters more than people expect. Matte tiles hide dust, footprints, spills and minor scratches, and they give better grip, so they're the safe pick for a busy family living room. Gloss and lappato finishes look richer and bounce more light, but they show marks and need wiping more often, which is why they tend to work better on walls or in low-traffic lounges.

Then there's the material. Porcelain is the durable, low-maintenance choice for living room floors: it barely absorbs moisture, resists scratches and stains, wipes clean in seconds, and it won't fade in a sunny north-facing room. Ceramic costs a little less and is ideal for walls and feature areas that don't take heavy foot traffic. Natural stone, slate, terrazzo and timber all look beautiful, but they need sealing and regular upkeep, and they cost more up front, which is exactly why so many people choose a porcelain lookalike instead.

If you're running underfloor heating, porcelain carries the heat well and is one of the better surfaces to lay over it. Check the price per square metre on each product page, work out your total from the room measurements, and you'll have a clear number before you commit.

Tiles never look exactly the same on a screen as they do at full size, and neutral tones in particular shift with the light in your room. If you're in South East Queensland, our showrooms have these ranges on display so you can see them at scale, compare finishes side by side, get some advice, and take a sample home to check against your walls and furniture before you order. Prefer to shop online? The full collection is on the site with prices per square metre listed, and we ship Australia-wide, so you can order samples or your whole floor and have it delivered. Set up an account to save your favourites, or contact the team if you want a hand matching tiles to your project.