Your kitchen floor, like every other room in your new custom home, must serve as both a functional platform for your culinary expertise and as an extension of your personality. Often times it is the one room in the house that bears the most foot traffic, not to mention all of the spilled food, moving chair legs, and dirt that can be brought in from the backyard. Your kitchen floor must, therefore, be both durable and easy to clean, while still taking your stylistic tastes into consideration. To help you find exactly the floor you are looking for, follow these five tips on various flooring styles to help you narrow down your search.

1. Ceramic Tile

Ceramic tile is both easy to clean, durable, and is one of the more affordable options for your kitchen and/or bathroom floor. Ceramic is available in a huge selection of colors, sizes, shapes, and patterns, all meant to help you create the floor design you always dreamed of. Just be sure to also invest in a “slippery when wet” sign for cleaning up spills, and you’ll have a kitchen that is both visually appealing and safe.

2. Porcelain

Porcelain is a type of ceramic tile that is made with color all the way through it, not just glazed atop the surface. Like standard ceramic, porcelain features a vast array of colors, shapes, and styles, but unlike ceramic, modern high-definition printing has allowed manufacturers and designers to create stunningly detailed designs that can resemble surfaces like hardwood or natural stone.

3. Hardwood

Nothing brings a sense of warmth, nature, and hospitality to your home like a hardwood floor. Available in several traditional styles like mahogany, maple, and oak, hardwood floors can easily compliment the interior and exterior design theme you have already established, and they are incredibly durable and simple to maintain.

4. Laminate

One of the most durable, low-cost-low-maintenance flooring patterns for homeowners is laminate flooring. Laminate is made of several layers of material, and can be made to resemble a number of other flooring designs like bamboo, stone, wood, and even tile at a fraction of the cost. It is also more resistant scratches and damage, is just as easy to clean, and can be installed over your already existing floors. The only drawback is that it has a shorter lifespan than other types of flooring.

5. Vinyl

For a more foot-friendly and comfortable flooring option, vinyl may be the right choice for you. Vinyl is easy to clean and has a long lifespan, making it ideal for households with a lot of foot traffic and for messy pets and children with pop-cycles and ice cream sandwiches. Like laminate, vinyl can be laid directly over your subfloor, and if you like DIY projects, is incredibly easy to cut and install with careful planning.