I have vein cut silver travertine and love it. It's easy to care for and requires only mopping and periodic sealing. Yes, things break if they're dropped on it, but breakable things break when dropped.

We have cork.

We have had ceramic tile, vinyl tile, linoleum, prefinished solid oak (liked the floor but HATED the grooves!) and now finished on site walnut plank. Of all the floors, the walnut plank is by far the easiest to care for and we love the warmth it gives to the rooms. Best invention ever? Swiffer Sweeper Vac - it takes me less than 10 minutes to clean 3 rooms and a hallway!

We also have cork. I am a home builder and have used all of the above flooring and most customers seem to like cork the best. Pros - Soft to the touch, Warm on the feet, Handles water well (it is tree bark after all), environmentally friendly (after the bark is stripped from the tree it just grows back to be stripped again), If a hard or sharp object create an indentation it smooths back into shape very soon, Can be used in bathrooms too. Cons - Choice of colors and finishings are limited but getting better.

For time and ease of installation , linoleum was installed. Colors were great but over time the wear patterns and gouges show. Stains also are beginning ( it's textured.) It filled the need for 5 years. Time to move on....

porcelain tile, love it to pieces.

Results so far. Wood is in the lead @ 38%

@ 2:12 pm EST
1/20/2016
%
Total Responses
34

Wood (Solid or Engineered - Maple, Oak,
Pine, Cherry, Cork, Bamboo, etc.)
13
38%

Porcelain, ceramic, or concrete tile
8
24%

Vinyl tiles or planks
5
15%

Stone (tiles cut from Travertine, Marble,
Granite, Slate, etc)
2
6%
Sheet vinyl (not linoleum)
2
6%

Linoleum
2
6%
Other - Please comment below
2
6%

I have vinyl, but want linoleum.

I have Brazilian cherry hardwood throughout my home and I love it. The nicks and dents are part of the beauty of real wood and don't bother me at all. After 10 years I still love the flooring (and I have 2 large dogs as well). Brazilian Cherry is a very hard wood and in 10 years of use (including in the kitchen) the floor is still nearly perfect. It does show dust, but I use a swiffer cordless vac every day (takes about 10-15 minutes to do the whole house) and use Bona with a microfiber cloth attached to a mop about once every 2 weeks on the main floor and stairs that get the most traffic. Bamboo can be a soft wood if it is not allowed to fully mature before it is harvested (5-7 years). Our installer at the time actually regretted putting bamboo in his own house b/c it dented and scratched so easily - probably a lower grade material. I previously lived in a home built in the 1950's that had gorgeous red oak floors. We had them refinished before we moved in as the previous owner never sealed them. A few scratches and dents over time but when we sold the home 17 years later, the floors sold the home.

I accidentally voted vinyl, but I have linoleum. Very practical, much better than the wood that we had before.

Oh, Bab, now I want to marry you for your linoleum, you lucky duck.

We have wood throughout, except for kitchen, mudroom/laundry, and sunroom. We installed luxury vinyl there for protection against water damage (so far in our various houses: dishwasher leak once, laundry pipe burst once, slow leak in guest toilet once) and muddy dogs.

I have the Brazilian Cherry like jacx27 , ditto to what was said;) Love it!

Who wants carpeting in their kitchen?

Ugh.

I have oak. My living / dining / kitchen is one large area. Some would call it a Great Room, but since mine is so small and in need of a redesign I call it my Not-So-Great- Room. I like my floors but would prefer a warmer wood - maybe walnut.

Dark engineered hard wood and love it.. would do it again if we move even though our dishwasher leaked on them and had to replace some pieces.. :)

I have tile in the entire house and would never choose anything else for kitchens, bathrooms or laundry or anywhere else where they are likely to get wet.

Wood (27 responses) and Stone/Hard Tile (6+16 = 22) are neck and neck with wood outnumbering tile so far

CharlieDog - what is a 'cleft' finish on your slate tiles?

Tgb1, the cleft finish is a very slight natural texture unique to slate, with waves or "fans" -- you can see a little in the picture I posted (we are mid-construction so it isn't sealed yet). It looks really nice in natural light. (Our black slate floors cost half the price of timber so we also added heating under the floor)

@ Lynne - thanks for starting this poll! We currently have quality older vinyl in the kitchen. It's bombproof but fugly. In the mudroom we have Berber carpet, which is gross but certainly catches ALL the farm dirt before it tracks into the house!

Fortunately it's a rental while our new house is being built, where all the flooring throughout the house will be wood, probably wideplank birch from Logs End in Ottawa (so the trees were a few hundred years old when felled, a couple of hundred years ago, and have been lying in the mud at the bottom of the Ottawa River ever since, so they really are "aged").

I'm quite tempted to revisit travertine for really high traffic areas, like the back door hall, though.

Logs End, where our floors will be bought, and they do ship all over.

http://www.houzz.com/pro/logsend/logs-end-inc

@ Charlie Dog - do you have radiant heat beneath the slate? And do you seal the slate? Grout? I'd love a stone on our kitchen floors (so I can have radiant heat), but the kitchen will be 20' x 30' with a basement below, and I'm worried I'll eventually have cracks across it. Love to know what you think.

Yes, it's radiant heat. It's wonderful, and it's not just a luxury, but a more efficient way of heating the whole room (news to me before I got it). You do not have to seal the slate, but we will use an impregnator to seal it once the kitchen's done. There are sealers that make the slate darker but that makes the contours in the slate a little harder to see. The grout is a dark gray to match the tiles. I like that I wasn't fighting the orange undertones of timber -- the dark grey goes with everything. Our kitchen is also above a basement, but half of it cantilevers out (it was a former balcony). I will get the official word on cracking from the architect but they did use steel beams in the floor. I'll let you know.

@ Charlie Dog - thank you! This is a good day on Houzz - I'm finding all sorts of great feedback.
If you don't mind me asking, what part of the country (world) are you? We're in chilly Canada, so a stone floor would definitely need radiant heat (which apparently also cools in the summer).

Ugh - can't edit any more, it seems.

Anyway, back to @ Charlie Dog - please do ask your architect, if you can. Our architect had the same concerns as me about the wide span of our kitchen and potential cracking.

I use thick old Persian-type rugs in front of the stove and the sink anyway, so getting back-sore from standing on such a solid surface isn't so much of a concern for me. Crocs for my feet help, too.

I never heard about back problems with hard floors until Houzz! But it does give me an excuse to get a pretty rug. I'll send an email to the architect now. We are in Tarrytown, New York. The wind off the Hudson River is very cold but the radiant floor heating (and insulation) have kept the room very snug. I was told the radiant heating is more efficient than the hot water heating we have, because the radiant is heated near the kitchen, and doesn't lose heat along the way.

Summery, this is what my architect told me (I told him you have a 20x30 floor but he must have missed that, and answered the question as if it applied to our kitchen.): "Usually stone and tile floors crack because of flex in the structure beneath. I don't think this should be an issue for your kitchen floors because you have two subfloors (3/4" plywood, and 5/8" warmboard), over an entirely new structure composed of LVL's and standard lumber. Also, the kitchen is fairly small, so if there was flex beneath, it would be too small to transmit upward and crack the tile. That said, sometimes we will add an uncoupling membrane called Schluter, Ditra. This product helps to prevent the transmission of movement under the tile."

Results so far (as of 3 p.m. EST 1/21) Wood 37% maintains its top position for floors in homes today, with hard tile (23%+8% = 31%) remaining in 2nd position, and Sheet vinyl in #3

Wood (Solid or
Engineered)
37%

Stone (tiles cut from Travertine, Marble,
Granite, Slate, etc)
8%

Porcelain, ceramic, or concrete tile
23%

Sheet vinyl (not linoleum)
12%

Linoleum
2%

Vinyl tiles or planks
8%

Carpeting
1%

Plastic Laminate (e.g. Pergo)
6%

Poured Concrete
0%

Terazzo (stone embedded in concrete or
resin, then polished or honed)
0%

Other - Please comment below
2%

1930s farmhouse with 1980s linoleum. When we remodel the kitchen it will be replaced with hardwood.

I love porcelain tile in the kitchen. Very easy to keep clean.

I have ceramic tile through most of the house. Hickory in the family room and carpet in the bedrooms.

We've lived in our home for over a year and I still don't know what our flooring in the kitchen, foyer and mudroom is. It is tiled and looks like stone. It has ridges and grooves and is impossible to keep clean. We had a professional in and he and I spent hours on our hands and knees scraping into all the grooves along with his big truck steam cleaner and heavy duty cleaners and still didn't get it all.
You drop anything on it and it's toast, including my brand new granite vanity countertop.
I hate it hate it hate it.
I'm adding a picture and if anyone knows what this product is please let me know. If you have any cleaning tips... bonus.

I don't have a pic of the actual ones I have in the kitchens in our home but many friends have commented on how nice they are, they are wooden like tiles- similar to the one I have posted here but much better looking to be honest.

At Boomers775, this looks like porcelain tile. One with such texture is usually designed to be used for outdoor patios etc. I usually specify smooth porcelain tiles for kitchens and if they are rectified, with grout spacing no larger than 1/16" so they can be easily cleaned. Hopefully you can get it replaced sooner than later with a more functional floor. Such texture in a kitchen is a crime.

Thanks APK. I agree. This flooring is a crime. Didn't mention that it also runs into the powder room. To replace we are looking at about 600 square feet. After purchasing the house we found out that the original owners ran out of money and did a lot of DIY finishing. The floor was definitely one of them.

We were 50K over budget in the first 6 months fixing those things etc. so that ship has passed for the time being as far as replacing the flooring goes. The picture shows the tile as yellowish but it is not. It is light greyish and looked (looks) nice unless you're the one cleaning it. Showed HD your comment and he is just shaking his head. He says that the next owners will have to deal with it. Putting him on floor cleaning detail might change his mind :-)

Results so far (1/25 @ 4:29 p.m. EST). Not a lot of change -- wood up 1% to 38%, hard tile up 2% to 33%

Wood (Solid or
Engineered)
38%

Stone (tiles cut from Travertine, Marble,
Granite, Slate, etc)
9%

Porcelain, ceramic, or concrete tile
24%

Sheet vinyl (not linoleum)
9%

Linoleum
3%

Vinyl tiles or planks
10%

Carpeting
1%

Plastic Laminate (e.g. Pergo)
6%

Poured Concrete
0%

Terazzo (stone embedded in concrete or
resin, then polished or honed)
0%

Other - Please comment below
2%

@ CharlieDog - thank you (and thanks to your architect!)!

Anyone else have travertine? Pros/cons not already covered?

Advantages for travertine not previously mentioned:
1. You can put in radiant heat / electric heat mats beneath (wood flooring is not good with radiant heat)
2. Beauty -- comes in a huge variety of earth tones & can even be tinted/dyed with masonry dyes (non-filled -- filled travertine might need special treatment)
3. Mottled coloring and irregular surface means that every single speck of dust or dirt does not immediately show

Disadvantages not previously mentioned:
1. Travertine has a lot of voids and spaces in it naturally - as a result, it can fracture when load is placed on a weak area of any tile -- this is especially true of vein cut tiles. The way to get around this is to purchase travertine that has been "filled" -- which adds support to the webwork of little holes in the stone -- it doesn't solve every problem, however. I have a couple of cracked tiles in my new house & will have a person who specializes in terrazzo come out and strip, fill, and grind the surfaces of those two tiles. NOTE: This tile was installed at least 20 years ago and there is more than 1,000 square feet of it and I have only 2 cracked tiles out of at least a thousand tiles (they are 12x12).
2. If you do not get filled and polished travertine, the little holes fill with grime and it is nearly impossible to get that grime out. ALWAYS get filled travertine.
3. If you don't heat it, it can be cold to the touch (like all tile). In the summer, that can be lovely -- in the winter, it means you need slippers.

Note the empty spaces and voids in these examples of unfilled travertine

Results so far....anybody else want to weigh in?

% Floor Type

37% Wood (solid or engineered)

25% Porcelain, ceramic, or concrete tile

8% Stone tile (granite, marble, etc.)

8% Sheet vinyl (not linoleum)

8% Vinyl Tile or Planks

6% Plastic Laminate (e.g. Pergo)

4% Linoleum

3% Other

1% Carpeting

0% Poured concrete

0% Terazzo

Wow old pole :). I have old reclaimed brick So I went with other