Early in the construction process, your builder will require an interior finishes list — your first stop in selecting these finishes should be the flooring store.

When is comes to selecting your flooring finishes there is more than one question to be answered: You will need to determine the direction that the floor will be laid; if it is a stone, tile or hardwood; and, how one floor finish will join another (called a flooring transition).

With respect to stone or tile, you'll need to select the grout colour. I recommend you choose a grout that will "blend" with the tile instead of using a contrasting grout colour that will make your rooms appear smaller and give the space a grid-like pattern.

Ceramic, tumbled marble, travertine, slate and porcelain tiles have new looks and shapes that reflect our back-to-nature design philosophy.

Surfaces range from deeply textured to hand-painted designs with a rugged, timeworn appearance.

Designers are selecting larger sized tiles (24 by 24-inch or even larger) that they can lay close together and make the grout lines disappear.

Porcelain, marble and slate floors have a natural rough surface and colour all the way through, so you won't notice it as much if a tile chips.

Natural slate looks wonderful laid in a subway pattern (somewhat resembling the staggered block/mortar joint pattern of a brick wall, as popularized by the New York City subway system around 1910) using larger 12 by 24 inch tiles. Modern homes may opt for glass mosaics especially in bathrooms.

To distract from a long narrow floor plan or to make a smaller space appear larger, consider laying the stone or tile pieces on the diagonal to visually expand the size of a room.

With today's open-concept home, we often continue the tile from the entry to the kitchen, to great-rooms and utility spaces. Design Note: The fewer flooring transitions the more open and larger your home will feel.

Lasers, routers and precision water-jet technology make never-before-imaginable designs possible. Virtually any image or shape can be reproduced in just about any material. Consider having a tiled, glass or mosaic design installed in the center of your foyer or border around the kitchen island to break up large areas of tile.

Hardwood flooring is among the most popular flooring choices for new homeowners.

With hardwood, not only do we have the opportunity to choose from an incredible selection of exotic and domestic woods, coloured finishes (look for new hardwoods to appear in pinks, greens and even violets) but we can also choose between a real wood and a laminate.

A laminate floor looks like wood, but is actually made out of printed-paper (the composition of a laminate floor is 87 per cent paper and 13 per cent plastic resins).

When choosing hardwood or laminate look for exotic, darker woods. Exotic species, wide widths — particularly five-inch and three-inch planks — character grades, hand scraped and distressed looks are the overriding trends.

On the lighter side, maple is still a popular choice, especially when inlaid with a darker wood border or grid pattern. Consider cork or embossed leather flooring.

Cork and leather tiles are available in a variety of attractive textures and multi-tone designs that are finished with strong high-tech surfaces to offer durability, comfort, fashion and a warm, lasting beauty. Cork is especially well suited to family rooms. Leather tiles look elegant in a den or library space.

Cheryll Gillespie is a nationally syndicated Design and Décor columnist.