Today's Many Choices for Flooring: Vinyl, Hardwood or Tiles for Your Home?

Look down. What do you see? Half of your home is beneath your feet. It may be carpeting, ceramic tile, wood, vinyl or modern creations that look like any of the others, but under your chairs, where your baby crawls and your pet scampers, and beneath your feet as you stand for long hours in the kitchen, workshop or home office is some sort of floor covering.

Selecting the proper floor covering is at least as important a decision for your home's beauty and comfort as selecting its furniture. The good news is that today's floor covering choices are nearly endless and the features they offer can simplify your life and add to your family's enjoyment for years to come.

Today, flooring choices have never been wider. Every kind of look a homeowner can want is available in today's flooring from elegant to antique, from comfy to rustic. Improvements over the past 20 years mean that most lines can offer lifetime guarantees, stain and wear resistance, and low maintenance.

Flooring choices can be divided into five categories: carpet, ceramic tile, vinyl, hardwoods, and laminates. Each category features dozens of styles and "looks" and a wide variety of colors, shades and textures.

Hardwoods have been around a long time and continue to be popular, according to Schulze. They look great in almost every room in the house, stand up well to traffic and stains, and come in a variety of styles and finishes that go with every décor choice from classic to ultra-modern. They are the preference for people with allergies who are concerned about irritants trapped in carpeting.

Rustic is a particularly popular look right now. Choices include wood type, color, and size and appearance of the grain.

Exotic hardwoods are also popular upscale choices with offerings such as "Tigerwood," "Red Cumaru," "Brazilian cherry," and "African Pearwood."

Laminates are the choice for those concerned with maximum durability. They stand up particularly well to both traffic and abuse and resist staining. They are also easy to clean and maintain. Most laminate floors can be washed with a sponge mop as needed and sealed or top-coated as little as once a year.

Laminates look like wood but offer a more affordable price range and additional stain resistant features. Laminate floors includes multi-changeable patterns so that the boards can be laid in varying directions. Other laminate products have the appearance of stone or ceramic tile with the price and durability of laminate.

Ceramic tile, always popular for walls, continues as a flooring choice especially in high-traffic areas like foyers and halls. Design options, borders, and complementary wall tiles make ceramic a classy, coordinated option for floors. Porcelain ceramic tiles-the hardest of all tiles-can be used outside in walkways and patios.

Vinyl flooring choices are available in well-known names like Congoleum, Mannington, and Armstrong, offering price, durability and easy cleaning among their many features. But vinyls, too, have improved with age, including lines which look like ceramic tile but are warmer to the touch (and to the feet) and which are "totally impervious to water." These new vinyls can be grouted with a premixed grout so that they look like tile in every respect.

Last but certainly not least is the old standby, wall-to-wall carpeting, but even that has changed and improved so that staining, allergies, and wear damage have been greatly reduced.

Polyesters have been improved and are making a comeback. They are particularly valued by growing families because their fibers are inherently stain resistant. The new polyesters also have much more resiliency than in years past. They don't mat down or show wear from traffic.

With choices like these, flooring shouldn't just be under the furniture.