Laminate is a constantly changing flooring which brings to us new and exciting fashions. It’s no longer “the great impostor.” Laminate has come a long way from the originals a decade and a half ago, evolving into a rightful design element for the home.

Modern laminates boast tight, glueless installation for a fast makeover with a craftsman finish. Look beyond the precision engineering and you’ll find features like moisture, bacterial, mold and anti-static protection and sound reduction.

Together with new fashion looks, that means today’s laminate floors can be used just about anywhere in the home.

In the end, though, fabulous-looking floors are always about appearance. That can be wood, stone or tile, certainly but also larger formats for faster installation and special look.

Early on, laminate floors featured basically shiny or flat, smooth finishes. Nowadays, you still can have those looks if you want (although the quality is MUCH improved), or you can opt for textured surfaces or what’s called embossed-in-register. That’s a very precise way of creating an accurate surface texture directly above and matching the laminate image just beneath. It’s the ability to show a stippled surface of tile and stone or the coarse-to-fine grains of rustic or furniture-quality hardwood laminate fashions.

Recent advancements include the “endless look” of grains and patterns so carefully lined up between pieces that the image appears to go on endlessly and mask the seam between laminate flooring pieces. For a high-end look, there’s the hand-rubbed look of matte oiled finishes.