I've seen the product in a retail setting and it looks great. The option to grout or not to grout is a novel idea. I'm considering them for my basement utility area.

Hi Louisa, I recently helped my aunt and her husband install Trafficmaster Allure flooring in their basement. They are in their sixties and they completed the install all by themselves after I showed them how the first few go down. The flooring was laid on top of DriCore panels. It's been a couple of months now and the floor still looks very good with no signs of wear. In my opinion, the look and feel is closer to hardwood than the laminate flooring that I had installed in my basement. Additionally, by nature of it being vinyl, it makes for a waterproof floor. Perfect for the kitchen.

I recently purchased an Adura vinyl plank floor from Mannington. Adura has a "floating floor" option which I needed for our basement. It has a "lip" essentially with adhesive that fits together and sticks to other planks but not the floor.

It is absolutely gorgeous. The texture and color of the vinyl is amazing. However, the floating floor option has been a NIGHTMARE of epic fail proportions. We've had numerous problems with the corners not staying stuck to each other. After numerous tries at a fix, a claim was made with Mannington. We have since discovered that the "stick-to-itself" floor option has been discontinued. A new "click together" (system similar to pergo) option is being manufactured now. Our floor will be completely replaced by the company as soon as it is available in our chosen color.

I'm still super excited about the product, even with the problems.

I used them in my kitchen and bottom stairwell.

Likes:
1) Incredibly, incredibly, incredibly, easy to install. A straightedge, a boxcutter, and a measuring tape is all you need. Knocked out the kitchen, including removal of the linoleum, in about six hours in my first time touching the stuff. No need to glue anything down, either.
2) Watertight and durable. No worries about using it in a kitchen or bathroom at all.
3) Warm & quiet
4) Looks nice.

Dislikes:
1) We went with the tile-look stuff, but the wood stuff doesn't look as nice in my opinion.
2) If you start the install, you need to keep going until you stop. If you leave the glue-strips exposed to air for more than a day, or if you screw up and have to undo a piece after it's stuck well, the glue won't really ever hold. I have to go through and gorilla glue some of the pieces at the bottom of our stairs because they keep popping up.
3) Seems to move around a bit with temperature / humidity, make sure you allot for some shifting along the walls.
4) Lots of waste in the install process, especially with the large tile planks.

Overall I'm quite pleased.

We installed 12x12 Trafficmaster tiles in our master bathroom last spring. We've only had them about six months so far, but they're great. And they're really, really easy to install.

We were seriously considering this flooring for our basement, but after reading the comment thread in the earlier Apartment Therapy article on the Allure flooring, we decided to stay away. It seems that over the past two years since the original post, more and more people are complaining about the nauseating smell, even to the point of having Home Depot agree to rip out and refund payments for the product.

With the recent problems with other products coming from China (odor, chemicals, toxic wallboard, etc), we thought it might be best to stay away for now.

(We decided to go with stained concrete. At $4.50 a square foot it's in our price range. We are scheduled to have it done early next month and are really looking forward to seeing how it comes out.)

We used the Allure in our kitchen as well. I would echo most of jasonjasonjason's comments on ease of installation and its durability - we have a small dog with long nails, and while it definitely scratches, it's pretty invisible.

I would differ on the wood vs. tile appearance, though - I think the wood actually looks more realistic than the tile. This is in part because the flooring is textured, so stepping on it with bare feet also *feels* like wood. Tile is supposed to feel cold, so when it doesn't, it reminds me that the product is actually plastic.

The Allure was perfect for us - cheap, quick, and could go down on our existing awful floor without having to rip the cabinets out. But if you're actually remodeling the whole kitchen, I would spend more money and choose something else. Cork?

We put the Trafficmaster flooring in our kitchen almost two years ago and it's held up very well. There was a vinyl smell for a couple of days, but no worse than other types of flooring. We did have to replace a couple of pieces when the dog knocked her water dish over. The spill sat until we got home and it worked its way under the seal.

I have to agree with the comment, above, though. If you're doing a full reno in such a heavily-used room, why not go for something longer lasting? The Allure product is nice for less-frequently used rooms (I'd certainly put it in a guest bathroom).

I have nothing to add to this discussion, except that if I were in this situation, I'd go with a cork floor that toned with the exisiting floors in the house. Eco friendly, wonderfully soft underfoot, great in kitchens. Plus, it would look deliberately different from the rest of the floors, but would still tone with them.

They have come a long way with wood floors. If you got an unfinished wood floor it would not be that hard to match up the finish and you could possibly put a transition strip between the two floors. Old houses always added on.

My husband and I just installed the Allure flooring in Cherry in our kitchen, and we're very pleased with it. We went with the cherry (a bit darker than we originally wanted to go) because the flooring was textured a bit - which isn't the case with the other 'wood' finishes - and we thought it would look less fake once it was on the floor. We're very happy with the results.
We laid the flooring over old linoleum - one thing to be aware of is the importance that the floor is level. You need to cut the old flooring wherever it's peeling or curling up... We did that for most of the floor except underneath the oven, and that's the only seam we're having trouble with not staying.
Also, be sure to use a roller and go over all the seams once you're finished - it will help make the flooring seal and tighten all the adhesive.

I currently have carpet over most of my home, except the entry & hallway, kitchen, kitchen dining area and bathrooms. I'd like to put down Allure flooring. I'm concerned that there will be note be a "smooth" transition between the tiled and carpeted areas if the Allure is installed over the tile since the carpet will be pulled up. Has anyone run into this situation? If so, do you have any advice you can share to help me decide how to proceed?

I have suspected that we had the Allure in our kitchen and today I confirmed it by getting a sample from Home Depot. We have the Ashlar and have been happily living on it for almost 2 years since we moved into our 100 year old house. I have been searching for a flooring for our 2nd living room and office to replace the horrible carpet (last room of it!). I am really leaning towards the cork look Allure flooring. I can vouch for the durability and look of the Ashlar. In addition to 3 people walking on it everyday, we have a 60lb lab, her messy water dish, her food, moving furniture on the kitchen floor (alot) and you know, its a kitchen floor. If you look very closely you can see the seams, but they are not lifting at all. Everything wipes off, and I rarely mop because it doesnt show anything. Never a smell, but I suspect it was down for about a year before we moved in (I know the former owners had a toddler and a big dog). I treated the floor kind of crappy when we first moved in because I thought- ew vinyl, we will replace this soon. But now I will probably put it in our living room. Ha!