Speaking to a well known acoustics company here in Chicago, they said that 6mm cork is a decent material, but it does harden and crumble over time. He used the example of a wine cork. The wet end stays nice and pliable, but the dry end tends to keep drying out and will crumble over time. This is what he said happens under floors. He wasn't necessarily against cork, but he just wanted to make clear that it's not perfect. For sound insulation, he was a big fan of 1/2" cork. I live in a high rise with 6" concrete slab subloor. I was looking into some nice LVP that comes with an attached 1.5mm layer of ixpe foam....feels pretty dense. The manufacturer says NO underlayment beneath because it will interfere with the 5G click lock mechanism, but I was thinking of maybe putting some kind of underlayment on top of the concrete, then dropping a layer of cement board on top, THEN the LVP. Thoughts? Not sure if cement board is the appropriate product for this purpose, but if not, something similar you'd recommend? I was hoping to keep the entire floor as water resistant as possible.

Magg5412 that's lovely! wow. It's been 3 years already since I posted my question and finally went with wood laminate that was less expensive than the luxury vinyl I wanted. We went with Pioneer laminate from Flooring Liquidators (sweetwater) my husband installed himself starting the day we got keys. The 18" tile floor the builder put in kitchen & baths looked so nice that my DH just wouldn't agree to ripping it up for my 'vision' of uninterrupted wood floors. (I just paid a service to steam clean all my ceramic tile where grout got too dirty for me to get it really clean--well worth it!) im in the middle of repainting inside of my house so no good pix. but the 3 years of wear on the laminate only shows where water got spilled near a plant and no one saw. Sweep. Mop. Done.

Thank you. I don't want the house to be gray and cold. I like that it feels warmer, even though I really don't care for any of it. The builder only offered a couple of options. I chose grey over beige walls and didn't like how cold the homes with all grey looked so the builder suggested these warmer options for everything else. None of the floor colors I posted with the cabinets are our options. They're all other brands and colors but it was all I could do with what I had at Lowes. I was hoping it could help me go in a direction - light, dark, warm, cool, brown, grey. I appreciate your insight about the darker floors. I hate our current light tile and really didn't want to get something even close to what is there now. My husband didn't want to pay extra for floors so we got the tile, it was all light. I was actually excited about them redoing the floors so I could get rid of the really light tiles. The light color was the lightest I could find when I was looking. I think a washed oak would look good and would be more timeless than grey. I just don't like light floors. I don't like the counters and if we don't sell, I want to rip them out. I wouldn't do that to try to match a floor. Ideally I'd like to change the counters, backsplash and cabinet colors. I really have my heart set on a pearl backsplash but it won't work with what we have now. Changing the kitchen colors is more for that than to match a floor. I definitely wouldn't change the kitchen for a floor. We bought the house 2 years ago so the builder doesn't have access anymore. No one can take photos in the house as we aren't there and I wouldn't feel comfortable giving a key code and having people in my home. Lowes has samples of our counter, paint, and cabinet colors but nothing that we can take with us to a flooring store. I ordered a sample of our counter but the piece I got was extremely brown and looked nothing like what's in our house. I need to narrow our colors down and order samples that we could take with us to Lowes but we're running out of time. They have to order the vinyl, take everything out of our home, repair the foundation, lay the new floors, and put everything back. They estimate we'll be out of the house 2-3 weeks. At this point, it looks like we'll miss 4th ofJuly and possibly the entire summer. I'm stressed. This needed to be done months ago. :(

Also like 20 mil wear layer of Nuvelle "Titan" Vinyl floor 9" very wide plank great colors, embossed texture surface non slippery, 6.5 mm thick. Tough surface wear layer, many videos showing removal of stains as well as 100% waterproof after soaking in water for days. $4 psf material only. Several local floor supply stores carry Nuvelle Flooring LVP SPC Suncrest. Titan line is AC4 (classified as moderate commercial or higher residential use). They make lower lines as well.