Flooring

Cost mostly comes down to material, square footage, and what condition your subfloor or slab is in. As a rough starting point, luxury vinyl plank installed typically runs in the mid-single digits per square foot, porcelain tile runs meaningfully higher once labor and grout work are factored in, and either number climbs if we find cracks, moisture issues, or old adhesive that needs to be dealt with first. The only way to get a number you can actually budget around is a walkthrough, because two houses with the same square footage can have very different subfloor conditions.

Porcelain tile and rigid-core luxury vinyl plank (SPC/WPC) are the two most humidity-tolerant options, because both are dimensionally stable and largely unaffected by moisture in the air or coming up through a slab. Engineered hardwood is the best wood-look option if you want a genuine wood surface, since its layered core resists the expansion and contraction that causes solid hardwood to cup or gap here.

Tile is the most moisture-proof and long-lasting but is hard, cold underfoot, and the most labor- and time-intensive to install. LVP is more comfortable to walk on, more forgiving during installation, and fully waterproof in most rigid-core versions, but it doesn't have the same resale prestige or heat resistance as tile and can dent under heavy furniture. Solid hardwood offers a look nothing else fully replicates but is genuinely risky over a Florida slab without tight climate control; engineered hardwood splits the difference, giving you real wood on top with a stable core underneath.

For LVP, a couple of average-sized rooms can often be done in a day or two once the subfloor is ready. Tile takes noticeably longer because the mortar and grout both need real cure time — a mid-size project often runs four to six days from demo to finished grout. Whole-home projects, or ones that uncover subfloor issues, naturally run longer, so we give a room-specific timeline once we've seen the space rather than a generic number.

Most homeowners stay in the house, especially for room-by-room projects — we section off the work area and manage dust and airflow so the rest of the home stays livable. Whole-home tear-outs, especially ones involving glue-down materials or extensive tile demo, are more disruptive day-to-day, and some homeowners choose to stay elsewhere for the noisiest, dustiest phase. We'll tell you honestly which category your project falls into before work starts.

Yes — most South Florida homes are slab-on-grade, and that's exactly the standard construction condition we plan for. What matters is what goes between the slab and the finished floor: tile can typically go down with proper surface prep, while wood-look or wood products need a vapor barrier or moisture-mitigation system to block vapor migrating up through the concrete, which is a normal, constant occurrence in this climate, not a defect.

Porcelain tile, once installed and grouted, is essentially waterproof. Rigid-core luxury vinyl plank (SPC and most WPC products) is also genuinely waterproof at the plank level, meaning standing water won't damage the material itself, though water can still find its way underneath at seams or edges if it sits long enough. No flooring is a substitute for fixing an active leak — waterproof flooring protects the surface, not the structure underneath it.

Kitchens and bathrooms need materials that handle standing water, spills, and frequent cleaning without degrading — porcelain tile and waterproof LVP are the safe choices, and we'd steer you away from solid hardwood or moisture-sensitive laminate in those rooms. Bedrooms and living areas have more flexibility since they see less direct water exposure, so that's often where engineered hardwood or a softer-underfoot LVP makes sense if warmth and comfort matter more than pure water resistance.

Genuinely possible, and it's more common than most homeowners assume. Terrazzo was the standard flooring across South Florida from the 1930s through the 1970s, and a lot of it was simply covered over — with carpet, vinyl, or a later tile job — rather than removed. A small test area is usually enough to tell, and if it's down there and in reasonable shape, restoring it is almost always more cost-effective than the demolition and new-material cost of covering it up again.

If the terrazzo is original and structurally sound — meaning the slab underneath isn't compromised — restoration through grinding, polishing, and resealing is usually the better move both on cost and on what you end up with, since well-restored terrazzo is durable, distinctive, and holds up naturally well in this climate. Replacement makes more sense when the terrazzo has extensive deep cracking tied to slab movement, not just surface wear, or when a homeowner wants a different look entirely. We assess the actual condition before recommending either direction.

Staining is rarely a dealbreaker — grinding removes the top layer along with most surface staining, and resealing protects it going forward. Cracking depends on the cause: hairline cracks from age are a normal part of a terrazzo restoration and get addressed during the process, but cracks that trace back to real structural movement in the slab need that underlying issue evaluated first, since polishing over a moving crack just brings it back. We'll tell you honestly which situation you're in before quoting a restoration.