Gracie,
As usual I do agree with everything you just wrote. Plus the tile remains cool for your feet. In a hot climate, cool floors are welcoming.

The steamcleaners you mentioned, no matter which brand, are GREAT as they can even clean with straight water. Leave no sticky residue like a Swiffer or other mop and detergent. Yes, the grout, especially in a kitchen like we have it up here in Vermont.......is the dilemma in certain parts of the kitchen such as near the dishwasher or from the coffeepot area to the trashcan.........other parts of the grout remain clean. One would drive themselves crazy trying to clean every bit of grout, so get the darkest you can get. Our kitchen tile is an adobe tan with similar color grout. The bathroom tile floors are shinier tile and for some reason the grout doesn't get dirty at all.

Wood floors nowadays are much easier to keep nice than the old ones of years ago..........but to me carpeting is still the easiest. Vacuuming is much easier than cleaning other type flooring. We remodeled a condo in Florida and I put in a pale oatmeal berber thinking it would stay clean as it was on the beach...........but it did get dirtier than even I would imagine. We put tile in the foyer and kitchen and bathrooms which was nice and cool to walk on. Plus tile on the balcony.

I think tile is great for Florida......but get one of those steam cleaners.

Also, I'm not saying there are "bugs" in The Villages, but another time we rented a house for one year in Florida on the East Coast near Patrick Air Force Base and it had beautiful plush carpeting but at night there were roaches that would "run out". Never saw them in the daytime. I assume they were UNDER the carpeting. I doubt if they could hide under a tile floor.
Nor under a wood floor...........but don't know about termites at all in Fla.

Ewwwwwwwww SENIOR. Bugs under the carpet???
 

OH no. I would never have thought of that........and now that I have.........

Has anyone tried bamboo?? Does it dent?? I noticed it in the unit we rented when we went home to Hawaii and it was so warm on the feet. We always take our shoes off, as is the habit for Hawaiians.

Keeping grout clean. I got one of those grout sealer applicator things at the tile store and have added a coat of sealer to the grout in the kitchen and high traffic areas every 18 months or so. It is time consuming but saves trying to clean the mold black out after the fact. I also have a steam cleaner and love it.

Wood on slab. I was told that the only time it was bad to put wood down on slab was if it was newer than 6 months as it continues to cure and release moisture for awhile. I don’t know if this is correct or not.

A Marble disaster. I had a terrible experience with marble tile in one of the stores I managed. Over time it cracked and chipped along the natural fissures I don’t know why. The areas of the store that had ceramic and those with granite stood up fine.

[quote=babbs455;211681]Sorry I didn't mean to put you down. I think my point, badly made as it was, was that for the majority of people I don't think the floor hardness was an issue.

My apologies - Russ

Feel free to call me a slob but am I the only one who doesn't really care that the grout becomes discolored after some time? We steam clean it and yes our grout has become darker as time has elapsed but I don't lose any sleep over it or feel the need to reseal etc. Not an issue big enough to not chose tile if we wished.

Not to worry
 

Well, not to worry.......I'm sure your new home doesn't have any.

We were on the east coast in a fairly new home owned by the widow of an Air Force General. After he passed, she moved to a condo on the beach.
She was in her 80's but did have the home "sprayed" frequently.

We would only see them at night if we we watching t.v. and the lights were out.

When we'd put the lights on, the roaches would scurry out and run across the floor. My husband pulled back some of the carpeting and pad...and they were under it. Circa 1970's. I've never read about them being seen in TV at all.

I'm with you on this one. For some reason the TV builders put lighter colored grout between the tiles. I'm thinking that when we finally have our house built that I'm going to stain the grout so it already looks dirty. That way I won't stress out about trying to keep it spotless.;)

Ya'all gave us something to consider. We are picking our grout color on Wednesday morning, so we will consider the darker color, that is a great point!

Russ, we don't think you are a slob! A house over time does get lived in! Heck, I don't want to put up velvet ropes up to keep people out!!

Army Guy

Flooring???
 

We have been in our home for 10 years and have tile in the foyer and kitchin with linolem in the baths and carpet in all the other rooms. We replaced the original (low grade) carpet 6 years ago with a upgraded carpet and it looks like new. We never walk into the house with our shoes on, we have a shoe rack in the garage and they stay there so we do not track in any outside dirt. If we tire of the carpeting, we will go with wood laminate as friends have it and they like the looks and ease of cleaning. The big mistake we made was to put tile in the shower. After 10 years there is no good way to clean the grout on the floor and remove the mold. We have a large shower and to replace the tile with solid surface materials will cost $7,000 - 9,000 dollars so we are puting that project on hold.

So what color grout did you choose???

Sustainable Design
 

Today in construction the big buzzword is sustainable design - maximizing local materials and minimizing landfill costs. It is a shame that The Villages does not allow more choice in floor coverings on new builds. I cringe every time I hear that people are forced to tear out new materials to install what they want. It would be great if there was some way to convince the developer to change this policy.

Don't know what the current policy is, but 3 friends have recently built designers and all chose all their flooring. Don't know how much choice you want, but these folks were satisfied with their options.

Bob,

We had our carpet removed before moving in. The carpet & padding were to be installed in another new home with a similar floor plan. We received a small credit also.

We have some tile in our current house and our old dog often enough slips and falls on it. When it's wet, so do I .. *LOL*... I like tile but I'm unsure.

Wood may scratch with the sand? hadn't thought of that.
the bamboo sounds interesting.

I dunno.

sure TV gives you choices on designers, but there are lots of us buying the patios and ranches too. they ought to just give a choice period, it's a shame to waste new carpet (or nearly new)

We picked camel colored grout, which is dark and just about matches the tile we are using. It was funny, thought that camel would be more of alight tan but it is really very much darker. It is actually the same as HD uses in their display for our tile.

Army Guy