I went with the stained concrete look when I built my house and quickly started to hate it. I've never had anything that was so hard to keep clean, or showed dust like it does. It's super cold in the winter and it just doesn't feel nice to walk around on.
I tiled over most of it and while tile is cold and hard, it doesn't look dirty all the time and it feels nicer to walk on then the concrete. In my family room, I went with engineered wood. I do a lot of flooring jobs for a living and feel that you realyl get what you pay for in materials. The paper stuff with a picture of it is the cheapest, but it tends to develop ridges along the edges of each piece fairly quickly. The engineered is made from plywood with the top layer being real wood. I'm told that it can be re sanded and finished if it gets damaged, but I've never tried that.
Stick with the name brands and avoid the China discounted crap. Ignore the warrantee on anything you look at. All that means is that if you have a problem, they will ship you a replacement piece. Getting it installed is up to you and never part of any warrantee.
I went with Bruce and highly recomend it.
Something that is really important is choosing the best underlayment that you can. There seems to be three levels. The bottom end is a thin bubble wrap. It provides a vapor barrier like all the others, but it breaks down quickly and you end up without any sort of give to your floor, and it starts to make noise. It will also crack along the edges when it can't float properly. This is especially true with the paper type snap together floors.
The next two levels are what you want. One is a dense rubber type foam. It's pretty good and I've never heard of or seen any problems with it. The most expensive is the felt type pad that has a plastic liner. This is what I use and what I like the best. It's is super quiet, it feels real nice to walk on and I've never had or heard of any issues with it.
Be sure to leave a gap around the edges. Every time you stop on a floating floor, it expands a very small amount. Half an inch is plenty, just as long as it's not touching anything. If it's touching, you will start to hear squeeking and the edges will start to wear on each piece. On the paper floors, the edges will start to rise fairly quickly.
I don't have any experience with solid wood flooring on a concrete slab. I know they do it all the time, but I don't want to mess with it and have to deal with it if something goes wrong down the line. It's also a bigger job sanding and staining it then installing it. I have done that a few times and it's not a fun job.
Good luck,
Eddie
