If you want to invest in a high quality, good-looking floor material, perhaps you should consider tile. Tile offers many attractive incentives for your home, including its strength, ease of care, and natural, handmade look.  It is resistant to dirt and water as well and you can pretty much create any design you want; tile can be cut to make all kinds of patterns and comes in a wide range of colors.

There are a few important factors to consider as well when you are picking tiles. It has to be the right texture and durability for the area you plan to install it. For example, exterior doorways need hard, anti abrasion waterproof tile so wet boots, furniture coming through the door and other ‘life related challenges' won't damage it.  If you're going to tile a shower, you will want slip resistant tile so you don't injure yourself. This type of tile is scored by a rough material to raise its Coefficient of Friction (COF), a number ranging from 0-1 where the larger the number is, the better it grips. If you can find numbers on the tile, non-slip tile is officially classified as having a COF of 0.6 to 1.0. Also check to see if the tile you plan to buy is rated for interior, exterior, or all-purpose use. Floor tiles range in size from about 16 square inches to 576 square inches, or 4" x 4" to 24" x 24," though it can also be found in other shapes like hexagons and octagons. Wall tiles are smaller and thinner between 3" by 3" and 7" by 7" with Mosaic tiles 2" by 2" or smaller. Mosaic tiles can either be laid individually or bought in sheets with pre-laid patterns. A custom mosaic can be stunningly beautiful, but if you are going to get one put in individually, it will be a lot of work to do yourself.  

Tile is by nature a hard material, but the hardness varies and is rated on a scale by the Porcelain Enamel Institute. The PEI rating system works as follows:
Group I Light Traffic: Bathrooms, bare feet or socks

Group II Medium Traffic:
Group III Medium-Heavy Traffic: Any home interior
Group IV Heavy Traffic: Home or medium traffic commercial flooring
Group V Extra-Heavy Traffic: Multi use, can be installed for any traffic
These details are not so important that you should spend sleepless nights debating Group II vs. Group III, but are useful to take into consideration.

What should be given an appropriate amount of consideration is the water absorption percentage. This is a very important piece of information because kitchens, baths, and outdoor tiles need to be immune to moisture. Water seeping into exterior tiles, (especially here in Virginia Beach where the water can freeze and thaw repeatedly) can crack the tiles over time due to expanding and contracting of small water bubbles.  Having a porous material in your living room tile isn't an issue because living rooms (or bedrooms and the like) see very little moisture and humidity. Tiles will be given one of three classifications from least absorbent to most absorbent: impervious, vitreous, semivitreous, and nonvitreous.

 Tile materials vary and each has different properties that can fit the look you are going to create in your home. Brick, Cement, Ceramic, Mosaic, Porcelain, Quarry, Saltillo, Terra Cotta and Terazzo are the most common types and offer a variety of different looks. In many cases, tile types can be combined into different layouts if a certain look is desired, as long as the PEI, COF and porosity ratings are the same, and the thicknesses are compatible, so your imagination (and wallet of course!) is the limit to what you can achieve. If you are going to get new tile, consider hiring a professional so the tiles can be properly laid and finished (since materials like brick require a sealer be applied before installation is finished).