regarding the hardwood floor thread below...

[edgarbc1]

i would go hardwood.
if you DIY which is less expensive than hiring an outfit to do it for you
i did the following:

Upstairs and main floor: Home Depot harris tarket hardwood 3/4" oak flooring. The nice thing if you get enough boxes, you can return a box with bad colors or not well milled pieces without any questions.
Bought a bostitch stapler and sold it after i was done with my whole house. It took a while to finish, but the results are fantastic and i didnt pay a lot for that muffler.

Downstairs on concrete floor:
engineering hardwood floor, with proper sub floor adders to keep moisture from affecting the floor. I had that done by a team of two
because I didnt have time to do it myself and needed it done
in a specific period of time.

the investment i think is well worth it.
vacuuming is a cinch and you can see the dust bunnies which pile up under the bed and near the air vent returns.

[Ted King]

We tore out the carpeting in our living room/dining room and the main hallway and put in engineered hardwood. It's way better to maintain. We almost chose a really nice laminate, though. You should check them out for yourself. Some of the newest laminates are really nice looking and good quality laminates are very durable and easy to keep clean. If you decide to go with a laminate, don't cheap out on the underlayment (padding) - cheap padding is a major cause of the "clicky-clack" sound of laminates resonating loudly.