Tutorials/Making nice floors

This tutorial shows how to make different types of floorings for buildings.

Overview
If a player is planning on staying in a certain house for a long time, they probably want it to look nice. Having nice floors can help with the appearance of a house greatly. Additionally, floors can give players a certain "feel" to the house; for example, using different colors of wool may make them think of the house as happy and colorful, while a mix on nether bricks, diorite, and netherrack with fire on it may make give them a sinister and foreboding feeling of the house.

Fancy and polished floors are usually achieved best by alternating two different blocks. This can be wood and wood planks, polished andesite and polished granite, black concrete and white concrete, or more. Brighter floors that look happier are usually achieved with different colors of wool, concrete, terracotta, or glazed terracotta, such as red, yellow, orange, and lime.

The exact types of flooring to put in your house is up to you. However, read through this tutorial for some suggestions on certain floors that may look nice for your house.

Floor textures
The requirements listed below are calculated for a 5 x 5 floor. The grids show sizes for many types of floors, often including a 6 x 6.

With Wood and Wood Planks
Wood is one of the most common materials used for floors in Minecraft, as well as floors in real life. Different combinations of wood logs and wood planks can give houses different styles. The advantage of wood is that trees are both very common and fully renewable.

Horizontal Wood Logs
Requirements: 13 wood planks, 12 wood This design has a fancy and polished look. It is somewhat spareful, but not as spareful as if it were made with solely wood planks. The wood logs are hard to orient, but this can be solved by placing the wood planks first and then the logs. Place the wood logs on the back and front sides of the wood planks, to get them to face the correct direction.

Vertical Wood Logs
Requirements: 13 wood planks, 12 wood This design requires the exact same materials as the previous. It is not as fancy as it would be if using horizontal wood logs, but it's easier to orient.

Differently Oriented Wood Logs
Requirements: 25 wood This design has a detailed and polished feel to it. However, it requires lots of wood, and it is hard to orient the logs. The easiest way to orient the logs is to place all of the vertical logs first and then the horizontal ones.

With Granite, Andesite, or Diorite
Granite, andesite, and diorite, were added in 1.8 for building. These three types of stone, when un-polished, can give a floor an old, eroding feel to it, while using combinations of the polished versions of granite, andesite, and diorite, can result in a tile-like floor.

Tile-like Floor
Requirements: 13 polished andesite, 12 polished granite This design with alternating polished andesite and granite is great for a tiled floor, such as for a kitchen or a bathroom.

Eroding Floor
Requirements: 16 diorite, 9 andesite This type of floor does not look fancy or polished, but it is great for an old floor that looks like its eroding away. It is basically a floor of diorite with andesite placed randomly throughout. Note that this grid is for a 5 x 5 floor, unlike the others, which were for a 6 x 6.

With Wool or Concrete
Wool and concrete can be used to brighten up floors a bit, and make them colorful. Most colors of wool are fully renewable, and the ingredients to craft concrete are fairly common. Use wool for a more detailed-looking floor, and concrete for a more polished floor.

Pattern 1
This wool or concrete pattern is more complicated than any pattern so far. The way its designed is easiest on a square floor, but can be accommodated. If you don't want to worry about accommodating to a non-square rectangular floor, make this pattern in the center of the floor and surround it with another simpler pattern.

Using blue, lime, and yellow wool or concrete

Requirements: 12 blue wool or concrete, 9 lime wool or concrete, 4 yellow wool or concrete

This floor pattern is nice and colorful. It can be built with concrete or wool. There are 2 grids below. The first one shows how a 5 x 5 floor would use this pattern with concrete, and the second one shows how a 6 x 6 floor would use this pattern with wool.

You can also switch up the different colors of wool. For example, you can change the yellow wool to lime, the lime to blue, and the blue to yellow if desired.

Using cyan, green, and light blue wool or concrete

Requirements: 12 cyan wool or concrete, 9 green wool or concrete, 4 light blue wool or concrete

This pattern gives a floor aquamarine water feel to it, while still keeping it colorful. As with the previous pattern, the first grid shows a 5 x 5 floor using this pattern, with concrete, and the second grid shows a 6 x 6 floor using this pattern, with wool.

Pattern 2
Requirements: 13 concrete A, 12 concrete B

This pattern is perhaps the simplest of the 3 wool/concrete patterns. It involves just alternating two colors of concrete for every block. Because this pattern is simple and is nearly the same for any size of flooring, there is only one grid showing how to make this pattern, and it is for a 5 x 5 floor. This specific example uses black and white concrete:

Pattern 3
Note: The requirements here are for a 7 x 7 floor, rather than a 5 x 5 floor.

Requirements: 24 red wool, 16 yellow wool, 8 green wool, 1 blue wool

You can use this rainbow-like pattern to make a very colorful floor. Although it looks the best for at least a 7 x 7, it can be accommodated to smaller sizes. For bigger sizes, you can add more colors, such as orange and purple. The first grid here shows how you can use this rainbow flooring for a 7 x 7 floor, and the second grid for a 12 x 12 floor.

Also, if you want, you can reverse the order of the rainbow colors, so that the red wool is in the middle, and the blue or purple is on the outside.

With Glazed Terracotta
Glazed terracotta is great when used to highlight certain parts of a floor, specifically in a castle or royal house. What makes glazed terracotta unique from other blocks, is that different textures and colors are shown throughout the block, unlike most blocks, which are one color throughout. Lime glazed terracotta is great for a royal-looking floor, while red glazed terracotta is great for a fancy carpet. Orange-glazed terracotta is great for a beach-hut floor, or the floor for a party place.

One option for glazed terracotta is to substitute the blocks in the wool/concrete patterns for glazed terracotta, to give it a more fancy feel. Here is an example of using glazed terracotta for the wool/concrete pattern 1:

For more patterns using glazed terracotta, see Tutorials/Glazed terracotta patterns.

With Pistons
Believe it or not, a piston, used for mechanisms and complex redstone machines, can make a nice floor. You can do this:

Floors for Rooms
If you are making a house and have plenty of materials at hand, you will probably have multiple rooms. Certain types of floors fit perfectly with a certain style of room, while others don't. Here is a list of rooms you will probably have in your house (specifically if you're in survival), and what type of floor would go best with them (note: not all of them have been mentioned):

Foyer/Living room

Your foyer is the room when you first walk into the house, and many players make it their living room. Using the wool pattern 1 with blue/lime/yellow wool, or a glazed terracotta pattern, would look great to get a visitor's attention. You can also surround the wool/glazed terracotta with either plain wood planks or with horizontal wood logs and wood planks (see the first image in "Gallery" for an example).

Kitchen/Smelting room/Dining room

The place where your smelting and managing food is done would look best with the tile-like floor, consisting of polished andesite and polished granite. Also, for a less subtle flooring, use the concrete pattern 1, with black and white concrete. If you have a separate kitchen and smelting room, use the tile-like floor for the kitchen, and for the smelting room, use (a) block(s) of your choice, or you could use the tile-like floor or black/white concrete floor for the smelting room as well.

Bedroom

Your bedroom is a room where you should make the floor your own. You can use whichever block is your favorite, or use one that fits your playing style. Additionally, you can also theme your bedroom. For example, if you're making your bedroom a water/ice theme, use the wool pattern 1 with cyan/green/light blue wool, or just dark prismarine. It's all up to you.

Crafting room

Although many players make the crafting room part of their bedroom, living room, or smelting room, while others have none at all, some players with bigger houses may have a separate crafting room. A crafting room looks great with any of the combinations of wood and wood planks, or if you don't care about a fancy crafting room and want to use minimal wood, only use wood planks.

Storage room

For a storage room, a lot of the floor design is up to you, similar to a bedroom. If you have an above-ground storage room and you want it to look nice, try using wood, wood planks, or stone bricks. If your storage room is in the basement, and you want the floor to not look quite as nice for a realistic basement look, use cobblestone, or for an even more worn down look, the eroding floor design, with andesite and diorite. Additionally, many players make their storage room part of their bedroom.

Note that just because one type of flooring for a room is recommended, it does NOT mean that you must use that floor for every house you build. The flooring for your own house is completely up to you - these floorings are just suggestions.