I love Novalis peel and stick flooring. I used it in my previous home in the entire house and it sold quickly. My previous home was not a cheap starter home or a mobile home but a nice home in a desirable area. It is easy to install and durable. I have expensive tastes and this stuff looks great. It looks like real wood. It has a texture that feels like wood grain. I will post pictures on this page of my novlais floor that I installed myself in my master bedroom. I laid it directly onto the slab. No underlayment or professional leveling or a professional installer to come in and help me. I used heavy duty shears to cut the pieces to fit. To give it an even more upscale look I laid the planks in a herringbone style and it looks fabulous. It looks like designer flooring straight out of a magazine. I spent about 300 dollars on materials and nothing else. My room is about 15 by 18 almost 300 square feet. I don't have fancy tools either. That is awesome compared to the 1400 dollar quote for laminate to be installed. More people should use this. They are all hung up on real wood and spending thousands of dollars on their floors. You dont have to do that to get a great look. You can have the look of hardwood on a budget. You can do it. I am a 45 year old mother of two with a full time job ouside the home, if I can do it you can too. I could afford to purchase real wood if I wanted to but why spend more if you dont have to. Using novalis on my floor left more cash for me and my family. And for the naysayers--no problems with loose or peeling planks or shifting. As long as you fit them in tightly when installing that does not happen. If it does happen occassionally remember that also happens with distressed floors so whats the big deal it is so small no on would even notice it. I will upload photos of my room so you can see for yourself how great it is. P.S.--I do not work for Novalis but I should because I really believe in this product!!!

I am not a huge fan of vinyl plank flooring. It feels very fad'y. Ten years from now, it'll be the one thing that lets you date when you did the remodel. Having said that, they do have pretty decent designs these days. They come really close to fooling you into thinking it's the real thing. And while some of the hype seems to be just that, they reportedly do stand up to abuse much better than older man-made materials. The nice thing about real hardwood though is that you can relatively easily refinish it. Or you can pick a material that looks great even when it is distressed. Neither one is really an option with vinyl planks. On the whole, I do agree with you though. The much better flooring material in the kitchen is tile. No need to stress if you spill something. And if you install radiant floor heating, it feels really nice on your feet, too. And if you carry if through the rest of the house, you can use area rugs in select locations. But that's going to be more expensive than putting down LVP. So, it's a bit of "you get what you pay for". On the other hand, if you plan on living in the house for the long run, it might make sense to do things right once, rather than replacing the cheaper flooring every couple of years.

We have gone back and forth on this as well- we are doing a major dining, living, kitchen remodel. We have decided to go with a beautiful wide plank engineered hardwood (French oak) from Bella cera called “Monza” bivio. It’s just light and natural and I think will look beautiful with our white cabinets. It’s a wire brushed engineered hardwood which I like more than the rustic hand scraped ones. It was very affordable at less than $4/SF. We have had a few people try to discourage real wood in the kitchen but my parents have had knotty pine floors for 30 year and they’ve held up fairly well and have been refinished twice. The only thing with engineered wood is the top layer is fairly thin with plywood underneath, so you can’t really refinish them but most wont need to be since they have a 25-50 yr residential warranty. I chose one that had some knots and grains and looked like it’d be forgiving. Some of the new lvt is more expensive but really pretty, I can just tell it’s not real wood and it feels a little plasticky and I just like natural materials. My friend has it in her yoga studio and for that application I think it’s great. The only thing I am nervous about is not being able to steam mop my kitchen and having to use wood cleaner with a microfiber mop. But I like rustic and genuine surfaces- we went with granite and are refinishing Saltillo. It’s not perfect but I’m just a natural materials person. You really can’t go wrong! But I think wood floors are always better for resale personally. The new vinyl is great though, and I would def do it in a bathroom, playroom, mud room, but don’t love it throughout the main house. Laminate is ok, but I don’t like the clickety clack sound when you walk on it, and I can almost always immediately tell something is laminate vs wood.

CoreTec wood line is a hybrid product. It has the water proof core (mineral core) that is very stable (doesn't move too much). This is a core that is NORMALLY paired with laminate (a paper photograph on top) or vinyl. CoreTec has used the wood product on top to reach out to customers who will NOT have laminate or vinyl in their homes. They are trying to capture the 'wood market' without producing a wood floor. My problem with this situation is: Wood expands and contracts in the presence of moisture. This is normal and to be expected. The CORE underneath the wood DOES NOT. Hmmmmm. That means the expensive TOP stuff (that you pay $$$ for) will do everything wood is supposed to do (expand/contract) while the stuff it is GLUED TO does not. And that brings us to the next concern: the Glue. A layered floor (like CoreTec Wood) has a weak link = the glue that holds the layers together. The Wood can and will expand. That will STRESS the glue underneath. Eventually (and no one knows when 'eventually' will be...the product is so new that no one knows it's breaking point) that glue will let go. The CoreTec core works well with laminate (the photograph) and vinyl because both are relatively stable when dealing with humidity and with spills. The WOOD is NOT stable. My concern is the hype around the water proof CORE is going to be the selling feature when the WOOD on top (and the glue below) are NOT. I would get a sample of this product and soak it in a fish tank for 24-48 hours. Then pull it out and see if the wood has been affected. At that point you can assess the legitimacy of the claims re: water proof wood flooring. Please get back to us once your experiment has been conducted.