Best Material for Floors:

[Petruchio]

Carpet

 110/13%

Ceramic

 39/5%

Marble

 64/8%

Granite

 41/5%

Slate

 12/1%

Hardwood

 277/34%

Bamboo

 84/10%

Vinyl

 12/1%

Linoleum

 23/3%

Laminate

 26/3%

Dirt

 97/12%

Other

 38/5%

823 total votes

[TedYoung]

Come on everyone, why use something so complicated. If you need floor just use POSIX! It comes standard with all perls (I think).

[tye]

Bleh. POSIX::floor() on a Perl that uses "long double" (or similar) as NVs induces a great reduction in precision. Much better to just use:

sub floor {  $_[0] < 0  ?  -int(-$_[0])  :  int($_[0]);  }

sub floor { my $i= int( my $f= shift @_ ); return $i - ( $f<0 && $f!=$
+i ); }

Now you know. :)

[lidden]

floor -2.5 Should return -3.

[swampyankee]

Hardwood is about as good as it gets, although bamboo seems to be a good alternative. My sister-in-law has granite in her kitchen and dining room. It looks fantastic, is easy to clean, and is roughly as slippery as oiled ice when wet.

It's also cold, even through my shoes and socks, in the winter.

[Happy-the-monk]

I chose hardwood since I was missing a dancefloor parquet.

Cheers, Sören

[Gavin]

Nothing can beat 300 year old English Oak boarded flooring.
That has been wax polished regularly over the years, then walked over by the feet of thousands to give that distressed honey gold patina that cannot be reproduced.

[DarthFredd]

Is it looks vs. functionality time? I just had my kitchen floor redone in DuraCeramic tile, which I like. It looks and behaves like "normal" tile, except it's very hard to scratch or break, and much cheaper. It's also warm to the touch, so no cold feet in the morning!

[Joost]

Plain concrete is the best modern floor material I know. Provided it's well sanded.

[KurtSchwind]

I've seen plain concrete scored and stained to look like marble.

It looked fantastic. And virtually indestructable.

[Happy-the-monk]

Yes... though it will kill your knees when you dance on it.

Cheers, Sören

[grinder]

16th century terracotta hexagonal tiles. After a few 100 years, they develop a lovely patina of wear. Although I have to admit finding spares to replace broken tiles is a bit of hassle.

[BrowserUk]

Rubber! To match my walls and ceiling and door of course.

[Gavin]

Would that be for bouncing ideas off
or
oneself?

[BrowserUk]

Glass houses mostly :)

Sorry. That's a bit of an in-joke. I thought it was too risque; myself thought it was cute. Me? I couldn't decide so I went with the majority and posted it.

[jZed]

"New Shimmer" is best for floors. It's a floor wax *and* a dessert topping.

[parv]

Haven't seen anything this bland (the options) since tofu.

[samizdat]

Other, as in "data center raised" :D

[djp]

Cork is fantastic for floors. Warm, soft, looks great. Fairly high maintenance though. Sign of the times that it's not even on the list.

[Anonymous Monk]

soak your cork

[stonecolddevin]

Hmmm. no stainless steel...i guess if I can't hose the blood off I'll just have to bury it, so dirt.

[thezip]

Definitely travertina tile in the bathrooms and kitchen. The gameroom will have 1970's-style 2" thick shag carpeting.

[nimdokk]

I'd have to say I'm a fan of hardwood. It's also a laugh to watch the puppy (not quite a puppy anymore really) skid out as he goes racing down the hall and spin into the kitchen (piling up the throw rugs we have down because the older dog is scared of the slippery wood floors - poor old guy). Just hope the little guy doesn't screw up his hips.

[tubaandy]

I've seen my kids do something similar, luckily we didn't have any accidents yet. :)

Plus, with hardwood, if you feel like singing "Old Time Rock and Roll" with your favorite trophy, you can slide around in your socks. Woo hoo!

[chexmix]

As an old caver from Ohio, I wanted "limestone," but "dirt" was the next best thing, and it makes a great Christmas gift.

[jdporter]

The backs (or feelings) of others. (Depends on whether I'm in a hurry.)

[chexmix]

"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants." - Newton

"Isaac! Are you done up there yet?" - Hooke

[stonecolddevin]

how very sick and Nine Inch Nails-esque.

I love it :-)

[ambrus]

Marble looks really nice, but the sole of some shoes give an annoying squeaking sound when you walk on it.

I like carpets, but not the whole floor covered with them because that's a hell to clean.

[downer]

floors in my loft are polished and sealed concrete. Nothing could be better than this. No sound gets transmitted, great heat insulation, it looks really cool, and i can put my woodstove on the floor without worries.

[gam3]

I use POSIX for both floor and ceil.

[Tux]

I'd like mirrors on the ceiling :) That won't be safe on the floor, and you wouldn't stop cleaning. And No more visits from skirt-wearing ladies.

[tbone1]

I wanted to get the field turf that they're using in football stadiums (stadia?) now. No such luck; my wife didn't want ground up pellets of rubber in the house when we have kids and dogs.

In all seriousness, we did get some laminate wood flooring, and I must say it does look nice. Certainly it was better than the pepto-bismal-pink carpet we inherited from the previous owners. Then again, anything would have looked better than the pepto-bismal-pink carpet we inherited from the previous owners. The laminate is also quite easy to clean. We have a Roomba and a boy who loves to use the swiffer mop, which means a minimal effort for yours truly. My only complaint about the new flooring is that, if our beagles need their nails trimmed, it sounds like a castanet convention in the hallway.

[Tux]

Smoked french oak in the living room and adjacent rooms, with hard tiles in the same color-palet in the open kitchen (no threshold) and in the toilet. We even found a sealant in exactly the same color as the wood that has no silicones. My sister proved oak to not be the best choice in the kitchen: dark stains and so.

[-arc-]

I suspect hardwood or laminate is probably best for most rooms, although slate/stone in the kitchen sounds lovely

It certainly isn't bare floorboards, however lovingly I hand scrubbed them, as time has shown the vast amount of dust that blows up into the house from the space below

[gloryhack]

Granite that can see the sun through the lights of a passive solar home is the best!

[blackmateria]

Hardwood gets my vote, since cork's not an option.

Granite, slate, and marble are attractive (++) and cold (--), as others have noted, and in a past life I might have voted for them. However, last year my wife's 96-year-old grandmother fell on her hardwood kitchen floor. She bounced, and suffered nothing more than a bruised hip. I shudder to think what might have happened on stone or tile.

[virtualsue]

$flags

[apl]

In my more whimsical moments I think "The bodies of my former project managers!" ...

[poqui]

"Gib zu mir etwas Fussbodenbelag
unter diesen fetten fliessenden Sofa"

Which is in German, being the language that the big "G" always uses when He means serious business.

[jczeus]

"Ich bin maroon!"

[olus]

Socks

[apl]

Linoleum. You can hose it down...

[xiaoyafeng]

Woo!! Hardwood! The taste in the world is almost the same! ;)

[papidave]

This is a far more difficult question than you might think at first glance. After some thought, I guess I was being confused because I don't know which version of "best" you are using.
• Concrete is probably most durable.
• Carpet is probably most comfortable for bare feet if you live up north (as I do)
• Hardwood or ceramic tile is possibly most aesthetically pleasing, but the former isn't very eco-friendly, and the latter can be cold unless you have radiant floor heading.
• Bamboo seems like a more ecologically sound solution than hardwood, but is it sufficiently durable?
• Linoleum (or dirt) are probably most cost-effective.
• Marble and Slate are both nice-looking, albeit expensive solutions.

  My implementation:

     foreach ( @rooms )
     {
        do { select LINOLEUM; next } if $self->poor();
        do { select CARPET; next } if $_->isa('LIVING AREA')
        do { select CERAMIC_TILE; next } if $_->isa('BATHROOM');
        do { select CERAMIC_TILE; next } if $_->isa('KITCHEN');
        select HARDWOOD;
     }
  

  At some point, I need to use Floor::Bamboo and see how well it works.

[Anonymous Monk]

leather

[SkipHuffman]

I was going to say "Old copies of Linux Journal", or perhaps "The Crushed Skulls of my Enemies"

[talexb]

I love hardwood. After I got separated, I had the opportunity to do some home renovations, and one of the things I really wanted to do was re-finish the floors, which were a medium-dark colour. As soon as I started sanding, I discovered that they had been dark because they were stained, and they were actually really a blond colour underneath. So gorgeous.

It's always amazing when some hidden beauty like the surfaces -- sort of like when the sun comes up after a bad night's sleep.

[blue_cowdawg]

Actually, in my mind the ideal floor surface varies with what floor I'm talking about. In a kitchen I like either high quality ceramic tiles or granite tiles. In the family room I like hardwood. In a bedroom I like carpeting. Bathrooms get tiles with throw rugs.

[dnm]

Where's the love for cork? It's soft so if you fall you won't die like concrete, it's got a look not dissimilar to many other substrates, and its warm.

[pileofrogs]

All floors at work are NOT dirt
All time spent not working is good
Therefore! Dirt floor is good!