I have heard good stuff about Calibamboo as far as scratch resistance, especially to sand and dog nails.
Itās true that I havenāt looked at the most recent ones. Iāve been pretty impressed with what theyāve done to ceramic tile.
We walked though a house that looked like it had hardwoods throughout. I noticed that the floors felt much different on my feet than the wood floors in our house. The floor in that house was ceramic tile made to look like aged oak. It was super cool but boy my back began to ache after standing on that stuff for 5 minutes. So that is something to consider when choosing tile.
Making a decision about flooring has paralyzed me for several years. I have ceramic tile from foyer, kitchen, powder room and laundry room/mud room. It needs replaced as well as the carpet in living room, dining room and living room. I want hardwood in the tiled current area as it is the ārequiredā flooring for resale in our area and we would like to downsize in the next 5 years. The problem is I have soooo much oak in the house and I think it would be wood overload! Most of the homes in the neighborhood have oak kitchens and trim with matching oak floors. I also have oak built ins and crown moulding. I have 5 estimates and they are wildly different. Some want to add new subfloor to make sure everything is at the same level, some want to remove island with granite top to remove tile that is underneath and some donāt, some arenāt sure what to do with fluted trim around built in stove and what to do with door and staircase trim that runs to floor but maybe not. So I am paralyzedā¦
We are currently having our foyer replaced. It was builder-grade carrera marble and my H wanted wood. The problem was the depth of the subfloor. To replace it with wood but not create too deep a first stair would have be difficult, so we went with porcelain tile. They have now completed demo and the mud job and today we are laying out the tile for installation. Itās a textured 12x24 bone-colored tile with veining; Iām terrified that veining will end up in clumps. The tile guys have said they will lay them out and show me sections before they set them. Problem here is I didnāt care whether we replaced the foyer - itās all my Hās baby and heāll be at work. This is one of those no-win situations for me; inevitably whatever I decide will be wrong. Oh, well.
Can you text him photos of the tile job in progress so he can monitor it remotely? 
If he cares that much, he can take a day off so he is there to supervise.
Yea, not likely re: staying home! Itās actually more my problem than his - but @BunsenBurner, great idea. I will do that if I have any questions.
You should be able to tell if you like how it looks before tiles get set. I just had to do this with the porcelain tiles in my bathrooms. A good tiler will lay it out so there are no clumps and the tiling works when together.
We have been looking at flooring and I agree the laminate/engineered flooring these days is much improved over what was out there in years past, it looks a lot more like wood. One of the nice things is that many of them have āclickā together floating construction (they have that for real wood hardwood as well). My only problem with these is many of them still appear to be to be really slippery, which would be a concern for us. We like the idea of the non glue because we have a bunch of critters, including companion birds, that are very sensitive to fumes, and from what we have heard the laminate/engineered flooring is very resistant to things like dog claws and the like.
Ya know, what we obsess over is almost always not noticeable to our friends and guests. And after a while, probably not to us, either. (And you know Iām saying this from the trenches.)
@NorthMinnesota a few area rugs will cut the look of lots of wood. I think our brains distinguish between the base background (lots of oak) and the foreground, (the more determined design choices.) If that makes sense.
Last evening, I had the perfect foyer color. Making test areas, as it dried, I kept saying, Oh, Yeah! This am, a bright morning, it looks yellow (ish. Just ish, but enough that I see it.) The other choice (C2 Pearl) looks warmer, good, (except by the front door, where it just looks white.) This is ridiculous.
Iām afraid of painting the first coat Pearl, then finding it too ānothing.ā Of course, the 2nd coat could be tweaked. But thatās back to another decision.
I have a very small front hall and I wanted an inset tile ācarpetā. The pattern was balanced, but not symmetrical. We laid out the floor and then the tiler took a picture. (And then messed up one tile. It bothered me for a long time, but I will admit I donāt notice now, and I donāt think anyone else has ever noticed.)
Another time, when I was working with a very striated marble (rejects from a client) where one side of the tile was usually darker than the other side, I explained that the rules were to make sure that light sides of tiles touched light sides of tiles and dark sides touched dark sides and all the striations had to lign up. They rolled their eyes at me, but it looked great.
Ask your local flooring store if 12mm thick laminate floors work in your environment. If yes, they are an excellent floor choice. They are thick and feel really solid and come in a lot of wood coloring variations. Easy to put down and very cost efficient. Easy to clean and will hold up really well. Itās important that you get the really thick laminate. Thin laminate looks and feels cheap
We have an Armstrong laminate upstairs in a grayish tint. It is textured and not at all shiny, unlike the old Pergo we have downstairs. I love them both, though the dogs get very little traction downstairs. they have learned to slide.
We put a medium cherry color laminate in the kitchen, since the original hardwood floors were too damaged. Itās at least 15 years old and looks great. At the time, the difference was laminate where the design is some sort of image on the top surface versus multi layers deep. The former wears off in high traffic areas. I canāt describe this more technically, but Iād bet you can google laminate quality comparisons. Ours isnāt shiny, either, more a matte. No trouble from the dogs (two, over time) and no issues with water, either.
I think the cone cells in my eyes are exhausted from this color stuff. I have to pull the trigger.
Lots of expensive newer homes in our area are using LVT in laundry/mud/ bath rooms in wood lookā¦ Our older neighborhood is upscale but more stately instead of modern/contemporary. I know I need to add wood floors but just canāt decide what looks good and updated with updated classic oak. It is not the orangey oak but rather a deeper brown. I really need help.
@lookingforward Slight changes in color at the corners wonāt be noticed as different colors. If the front door is on a separate wall, have you considered using the almost yellowish color there where it just looks warm and the pearl on the rest where it looks great?
I have a bright living room section that leads to a long dreary hallway. I used a darker version of the color in the bright area and a lighter version in the hallway. Even though I painted it, I canāt tell at the corner that it is two different colors. What I do notice is that the hallway seems to be the same color as the room instead of looking like a dreary hole.
@NorthMinnesota -Area rugs will really help break up all the oak. If the cabinets are on the darker side, you could go a few shades lighter on the floor. What about just a color consultation with an interior designer?
I will never buy another thing online at Loweāsā¦ This PO was messed up many times, and now we got a broken toilet sitting in our driveway - sure, it is FedEx Ground that broke it, but the store should know better and use a different carrier if these goons break toilets all the time. Argh! Also, got a catalog in the mail that looked like Pottery Barn or something - it was Home Depot! Furniture, accessories, KitchenAid mixers, oh myā¦ Loweās toast.
@notrichenough, I used Coretec Plus XL Enhanced. I put this in a pieds-Ć -terre which just underwent a gut renovation. I like it because it is waterproof and I canāt be there to wipe up all the spills like I do at my home which has hardwood floor throughout with lots of large area rugs.
I did put a sound proof underlayment under them per co-op rules and there is no hollow noise.