The four flooring families
Porcelain is fired clay, dense enough that it absorbs almost nothing and hard enough that it does not scratch in ordinary use. Natural stone is quarried, so each piece is different and each material has its own chemistry. Luxury vinyl is a printed, layered product built for comfort underfoot and tolerance of water. Engineered wood is real wood over a stable core.
Those four cover almost everything here. A room usually rules out two of them before anyone looks at a picture: a wet room narrows the list quickly, a basement narrows it differently, and a hallway that has to survive a dog and a bicycle narrows it again.
Wood look and marble look
Wood look runs across this range in numbers nothing else comes close to, and it appears in porcelain, in vinyl and in wood itself. Marble look does the same thing at smaller scale, and the stone looks generally sit in the porcelain half of the range.
So the old shortcut, choose the look and the material comes with it, no longer works. A wood look floor can be wood, porcelain or vinyl, and those three behave nothing alike in a bathroom. The look is a separate decision from the material, and it is worth making them in that order: material first.
Where each family is covered
Luxury vinyl plank covers the vinyl side in depth. Engineered hardwood covers real wood, and waterproof hardwood covers the wood faced boards built on a mineral core.
For the fired and quarried materials, porcelain tiles and stone tiles take those two families. This page exists to get you to the right one, not to repeat what they say.
Shade variation, V1 to V4
Tile in this range publishes a shade variation rating, V1 through V4. V1 means every piece looks the same; V4 means pieces vary dramatically and the floor is meant to read as a mix.
It is the number that most often surprises people after delivery, because a photograph shows one tile and a floor shows hundreds. A V4 product opened from a single box can look like an error until enough of it is down. Checking that rating against how uniform you want the floor to be takes a moment, and it is the step that stops a delivery from looking like a mistake.
Floor tile finishes and wet floors
Matte and semi gloss dominate here, with a smaller group carrying an anti slip designation. On a wall the finish is about light; on a floor it is also about what happens when the surface is wet.
Gloss reflects more and shows more, which reads well in a formal room and less well in a hallway that collects footprints. The anti slip products exist for wet areas and outdoor use, and what any specific rating means is published against the product.
Floor tile formats and the room
The common size here is 12 by 24 inches, with a large group at 24 by 48 and another in plank shapes around 7 by 48. Those three produce quite different floors from the same material and the same color.
A large format tile means fewer grout lines, which makes a small room read as one surface instead of a grid. A plank shape gives a floor direction, so a narrow room laid along its length looks longer. Squares are neutral and sit quietly under whatever the room is doing. None of that has anything to do with the material, and all of it is decided at the same moment.
Floor tile thickness
Thickness varies enormously across these materials, from thin resilient plank at one end to stone and thick porcelain paver at the other. The figure matters for two practical reasons and neither is strength.
The first is height: a new floor over an existing one raises the level, and doors, thresholds and appliances under a countertop all have to clear it. The second is that on vinyl the figure people quote is often the wear layer, which is a different number from the total thickness and the one that actually predicts how the floor ages. Both are published per product.
Floor trim and edges
A finished floor is not just the floor. Every edge it has needs a piece cut for that edge, and on tile those pieces are fired in the same body as the field so the color runs through.
Flooring trim covers which profile answers which edge.
Quantities and waste allowance
Tile and plank are sold by the box, and each box states the square footage it covers along with how many pieces are in it. The area of the room is the starting figure.
What gets added to it is cutting: a room with alcoves, angles or a diagonal layout wastes more than a plain rectangle. The allowance is worked out from the layout, and it belongs in the order rather than after it.
