I was so set on getting wood look tile until my friends told me to check on Luxury Vinyl, and after doing some reading here on GW, I am almost convinced to switch to LVP/LVT. BUT then I see @Season Contreras's beautiful tiles, I am not so sure again! I like the durability of the tiles and that we can drag furniture on it with no problem of scratching it or damaging it, but then I like the LVP for being warm and not so hard on foot. We are doing about 1000 sqft for kitchen plus family room and entry way, (the rest of the house is carpet for bedrooms and a loft). We have two boys and a dog, a pool right outside the family room, got a big yard with lots of dirt, boys will probably bring some of that in all the time.... Houses in my neighborhood worth about a little over a mil (not ours because we bought it a fixer), they mostly are retired so no little kids running around so they mostly use hardwood or engineered wood. We are in our 40s and plan to retire in this house and not selling anytime soon. What should I use, Wood look tiles or Luxury Vinyl? Thank you for your help!

Good bamboo (ie. the $12/sf price point) is very dense. Any wood floor can dent with heals. It depends on the size of the heal (is it a 'Queen Mum' wide-body heal or is it a 3" stiletto?) and the size of the human wearing it (the movie 'Kinky Boots' comes to mind). A 250 lb man in stilettos is going to put very big dents into pretty much any wood floor he walks on....the pounds per square inch come into play when dents are created. A bad bamboo or bad engineered hardwood is going to dent easily. They are perfectly fine on stairs. They are still rigid wood-like floors. In fact cork does very well on stairs (the softest hardwood in the world!!!). The FINISH is what scratches. The FINISH is what takes all the abuse. A bad factory finish will scratch like the dickens...and look like it needs to be refinished inside of 15 years. That's one of the differences between 'good' bamboo and 'bad' bamboo. A high-end bamboo product is going to cost you some SERIOUS money. I'm not kidding. It is HEAVILY engineered. In fact it can be 30% adhesive (glue...holding the grass together). It can be carbonized. It can have upto 15 coats of UV cured Aluminum Oxide urethane applied to it. Just because it is all produced in China doesn't mean it is cheap/cost effective to purchase. It isn't. The independent importers are very specific about who they source from (a bad batch can bankrupt them) and what type of product they sell. All of that 'human input' has a cost. The mature bamboo (7+ years old) is expensive. It is hard to harvest. It is harder to process (because it is so thick and strong). It requires VERY EXPENSIVE adhesives (allowed in the EU = darn near Zero VOC levels = very expensive). And the finish (15 layers) take ++ time to create and cure and stack, etc. Keeping it climate controlled is SUPER IMPORTANT = very expensive. It is required at time of creation, during transport (on the ship) and when it arrives in port/warehouse facility. And it is HEAVY. Heavy = dense = expensive to ship around the world. And THAT'S why $12/sf bamboo is worth it. But the $4.99/sf cr@p isn't. A solid white oak 3" plank (character grade) = $4.99/sf and WELL worth it.

IMo flooring choices should be made for how you live and where you are. IMO tile floors in the tropics are the preferred but hardwood in the cooler climates unles you have big dogs and kids then IMO a good quality vinyl plank is the most practical solution I have 3 big dogs 60,65 and 125 lbs. I have laminate that looks like slate on my main floor and vinyl plank in our walkout basement because our dogs have free run to a dog run through a doogie door in all kinds of weather all day. That floor vacuums up and gets damp mopped when needed always looks like new and both those flooring types are 12 yrs old with no scratches. I have had clients that insissted on hardwood with big dogs and in less than a year the floor looked horrible. BTW tile floor is very hard on knees , backs and feet also anything dropped will surely not survive. I think unless you are selling in the next year get what works for you.

@V M sorry, just seeing your post above. We are just now finally breaking ground on our home so I don't have pics of the flooring to show you from my house. I will come back and post when I do but that will be some months from now. But we are paying, I think, 15K for our Multi-Length Rigid Core SPC floors in color Sandhill. Our house will be 2975 sf and this floor covering will be throughout the home, except in 3 of the full baths and the utility room. I'm not exactly sure how many square feet that leaves but hopefully you can do some rough math. Everything goes through my builder so I don't have an exact price per square foot to provide you. I also am not sure if this includes labor to install.