What Dream Living is
Dream Living is a full range flooring brand, not a single product. It builds across four materials, laminate, water resistant laminate, rigid core SPC vinyl and engineered hardwood, and finishes them with matching trims and underlays. The whole range is warehoused in Ontario, which means the stock is in the province when you need it and a replacement box is not an overseas special order.
Squarefoot Flooring stocks the Dream Living 12mm laminate today, and that is the floor on the grid above and the main subject of this page. The rest of the Dream Living line we bring in to suit a project, and the sections below lay out honestly what each material is for, so you can tell us the room and we can point you to the right one.
In simple terms: Dream Living makes laminate, waterproof vinyl and real engineered wood. We stock the thick 12mm laminate for dry living spaces, and we can source the waterproof and wood lines when a room needs them.
Dream Living 12mm laminate, the floor we stock
Laminate is built in layers: a dense fibreboard core, a printed decorative layer that carries the wood look, and a clear wear layer on top that takes the traffic. The quality of a laminate comes down to how thick and dense that core is and how tough the wear layer is. At 12mm, Dream Living sits at the thick end of the laminate market, and that is what gives it the solid feel and the quiet step.
- A solid step, not a hollow one. A thin laminate drums when you walk on it. A 12mm board has the mass to sound and feel solid underfoot, closer to the step of an engineered wood floor than a budget laminate.
- It rides over an imperfect subfloor. A thicker, denser core bridges the small dips and rises that a thin board sinks into and reveals. That matters in the older homes we work in across Toronto and Etobicoke, where subfloors are rarely dead flat.
- Tighter, more durable joints. A deeper click profile on a thick board locks the seams together more firmly, which is what keeps the joints from working open over years of traffic.
We do not print the AC traffic rating, the wear layer detail or the exact warranty on this page, because those need to come off the current product spec rather than a web listing, and a wrong number is worse than none. The AC rating in particular tells you how much traffic a laminate is built for, and it is worth getting exactly right for your room. Come in and we will read it to you off the box.
Decision: if you want the look of a wood floor at a laminate cost, and you want it to feel solid rather than cheap, the 12mm thickness is the reason to look at Dream Living over a thinner board. See how it sits against other options in the laminate category.
The honest limit: regular laminate is not waterproof
This is the one thing that matters most to get right, so we say it plainly. Dream Living 12mm is a regular laminate, and regular laminate has a fibreboard core. It handles a spill you wipe up and the normal traffic of a living space. It does not handle standing water, a leaking dishwasher, or a wet basement. If water sits on a seam long enough to soak into the core, the board swells at the edge, and that swelling does not go back down.
That is not a knock on the floor, it is the nature of the material, and knowing it is what puts it in the right room. It is also the reason Dream Living makes the other lines below. For a living room, bedroom, hallway or dining room upstairs, the 12mm regular laminate is a strong, cost effective wood look floor. For a basement, a full bathroom, or a laundry room, it is the wrong material, and we will move you to one of the waterproof Dream Living options rather than sell you a callback.
Decision: above grade living space, dry rooms, main floors and bedrooms, Dream Living 12mm is a sound choice. Basement, bathroom or laundry, move to the Dream Living SPC vinyl or water resistant laminate below, or a rigid core vinyl plank from our wider range.
Dream Living water resistant laminate
This is the same familiar laminate format, the wood look, the click together install, the thick solid feel, but built to hold up to water far better than a regular fibreboard core. It is the line to reach for when you love the laminate look and the price, but the room is a moisture risk: a kitchen, a busy entryway, a household with kids and pets where spills are a fact of life rather than an exception.
It is a genuinely different product from the 12mm regular laminate, not the same board with a marketing label, which is exactly why the brand lists them separately. If a room falls in the grey area between fully dry and fully wet, this is often the right answer, and it is one we will talk through against how you actually live in the space.
Decision: you want a laminate but the room sees water, kitchen, mudroom, main entry, the water resistant line is the one to ask us to bring in. Compare the category in water resistant laminate.
Dream Living SPC vinyl, the waterproof option
When a floor has to be genuinely waterproof, laminate is the wrong tool and SPC vinyl is the right one. Dream Living builds its SPC on a 5mm rigid stone polymer core, which does not absorb water, stays stable over concrete, and goes down below grade where no laminate should. It comes two ways, and the difference is real.
- SPC with no pad attached. The bare backed 5mm plank. You choose this when the job calls for a separate acoustic underlay laid underneath, which is common in a Toronto or Mississauga condo that has a specific sound rating to meet before the board will approve the floor.
- SPC with underlay attached. The same 5mm rigid core in a tile format with a pad already bonded to the back, so there is no separate underlay to roll out. This is the faster, simpler route for a basement, a laundry room or a rec room where the sound rating is not a formal requirement.
Decision: waterproof and going over concrete or below grade, Dream Living SPC is the material. Condo with a sound rating to meet, the no pad version plus the right underlay. Basement or laundry, the pad attached tile is quicker. See our wider vinyl tile and vinyl plank ranges alongside it.
Dream Living engineered hardwood
The one line in the range that is real wood. Engineered hardwood is a genuine wood wear layer over a stable core, so it gives you an actual hardwood surface, including a white oak wire brushed option, that can go over concrete and in spots where solid hardwood cannot. Wire brushed means the softer grain has been brushed out to leave a subtle texture, which reads as character underfoot and hides day to day wear better than a flat smooth finish.
This is the Dream Living choice for someone who does not want a printed look at all and wants the real thing, at a cost below solid hardwood and with more placement flexibility. It is a floor you can live with for a long time, and depending on the wear layer it may be refinishable, which is a spec we confirm off the product before you plan around it.
Decision: you want real wood rather than a wood look, and a floor with more give on where it can go than solid timber, ask us about the Dream Living engineered line. Compare it in engineered hardwood.
Trims and underlays
A floor is only finished when it meets the wall, the threshold and the next room properly. Dream Living makes the matching reducers, mouldings and underlays that complete any of its floors, so a laminate meets a tiled kitchen at a clean transition and a floating floor sits on the right underlay for sound and moisture. These are not an afterthought. The wrong transition or the wrong underlay is exactly the kind of detail that makes a good floor look unfinished, and we spec them as part of the job.
Where each Dream Living floor belongs
- Dry living space, main floors, bedrooms, hallways. The 12mm laminate, our stocked floor.
- Kitchens and moisture prone rooms that still want a laminate look. The water resistant laminate.
- Basements, laundry rooms, anywhere genuinely wet, over concrete. The SPC vinyl, pad attached for speed or bare for a condo sound spec.
- A room that wants real wood with placement flexibility. The engineered hardwood.
And where none of these fit, we say so. For solid hardwood you refinish over decades, that is a different floor for a different budget. Laminate and vinyl are wear surfaces. When the wear layer goes you replace the floor, you do not refinish it.
Installation, where a floating floor is quietly won or lost
Laminate and SPC both look simple to lay, which is exactly why so much of it is laid badly. A floating floor needs an expansion gap around the whole perimeter or it buckles when the seasons change. It needs a flat subfloor, or the boards flex and the joints wear. It needs the right underlay under it for sound and for moisture. Skip any of those and the floor fails, and none of it is the board's fault.
Squarefoot Flooring supplies and installs Dream Living with our own people, full time employees who do residential and commercial work. Before the first board clicks in, our crew flattens and preps the subfloor, sets the expansion gap the product needs, and lays the correct underlay underneath. On an engineered wood job over concrete, the crew moisture tests the slab first. We are not booking a subcontractor and hoping the details come out right.
We supply and install Dream Living from our Mississauga showroom across Toronto, Mississauga, Etobicoke, Brampton, Port Credit, Erin Mills, Streetsville, Meadowvale and Cooksville, and from our Barrie showroom across Barrie, Innisfil, Angus, Orillia, Collingwood, Midland and Simcoe County. Installation across the Greater Toronto Area books about two weeks out. Barrie and cottage country jobs from May through September fill eight to twelve weeks ahead, so a summer floor is best booked in spring.
See how a laminate installation runs with us, and look at the flooring underlayments the floor needs underneath. Both are handled in house.
Colour, matching and sampling
Dream Living floors come in a range of wood tone colours. Colour reads differently under your own light than under showroom lighting, so take a sample home and set it in the actual room, at the hour you are usually in it. A tone that looks warm in the store can read grey against a north facing window, and the only way to know is to see it in place.
If you are matching or extending an existing Dream Living floor, bring a spare board or a clear photo of the box label. That identifies the exact colour and product line far more reliably than a name, since colours and batches update over time and two runs can differ slightly in shade.
See Dream Living at our showrooms
The Dream Living 12mm laminate is on display at both Squarefoot Flooring showrooms, and we can walk you through the wider Dream Living range and bring in the water resistant laminate, SPC vinyl or engineered wood to suit your project. Both showrooms are where you see it, choose it and book the install. Bring your room measurements, your subfloor type, and whether the room is above or below grade.
Mississauga. 700 Dundas St E, Unit 3-4, L4Y 3Y5. Call 905-277-2227. Monday to Friday 9 to 6, Saturday 10 to 5, closed Sunday.
Barrie. 112 Saunders Rd, Units 1-4, L4N 9A8. Call 705-726-2272. Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9 to 6, Tuesday and Thursday 9 to 5, Saturday 10 to 5, closed Sunday.
Bring a floor plan and leave with a spec you can trust and a crew that answers to us. Book a showroom visit, or call and we will tell you in five minutes which Dream Living floor suits your room, including when it is not a Dream Living floor at all.
