Mmmhh.. i'm with you actually; we looked at so many floor covering options for the downstairs that I got sick of it.. It's an anhydrous screed with UFH..
Carpet - lovely feel, quiet and means i don't have to buy a couch but murder to clean, wears out and blocks the UFH
Tiles - lovely feel, classy, solid, conducts UFH well, easy to clean and hardwearing but too hard, darling son might fall and break his face, could be slippery, could feel cold and uninviting, noisy in high heels (not mine) and not very comfy to lie on
Wood laminate - cheap, quick and easy to lay but sounds hollow, wears and looks shabby quickly, worse if gets wet, underlay blocks the UFH, not comfy to lie on, somewhat hard and struggles to look authentic
Engineered wood - classy, warm, little quieter than other hard coverings but potentially a bitch to lay, and only so-so good for UFH. Also quite thick so you can't really have a mix of coverings without step changes in level unless it's all wood and bar the colour, not much changes about it
Linoleum - warm, soft, easy to care for, range of weird designs, should be reasonably easy to install but has a bit of a stigma, imitations of other materials aren't very authentic, the foamier it is the worse for UFH and it's rather much the preserve of cheap northen kitchens IMHO. Also fairly easy to damage/wrinkle
Vinyl planks (karndean etc) - can be classy, range of textures, relatively quiet but solid feeling, pretty good for UFH, can incorporate all sorts of weird and wonderful designs/murals and imitate other coverings really well, hard wearing in thicker forms, easy to lay and transport, doddle to care for.. but it can be expensive, still fairly hard feeling, it is possible to damage it mechanically through lack of care and much as your mates might not realise it's vinyl until told, they might then think it's linoleum and assume it's a cheap imitation of some real thing
Overall, I favoured the vinyl planks the most, couldn't care less what other people think and I'm looking at installing Polyflor's dark recycled wood because it's just weird, different and i think it's brilliant. I wish it was more comfy to lie/fall on but it's not as bad as tile and there is nearly no compromise on squidgy and UFH comaptible - something is either one, or the other
