I don't have much experience, yet. We just re-did our kitchen and dining rooms to make one larger room and we used a laminate that looks like slate tiles. m I love the look, stil getting use to the harder sound of chasirs on tile. But an area rug is going down soon. Our little dog is getting use to it too. When she runs she slides into the cabinets!! And she has a hard time getting traction. Funny to watch . Do any of you use to small steam vacs to clean your floors? My daughter does , she hasn't had any problems after 7 years.