Do you have any experience living with/caring for cork floors?

I had them in a little lake house, but it was in the 1960’s. They retained the heat, were soft under foot and required only a vacuuming occasionally. I do not know whether the cork floors of today are the same quality. (They did show dents from heavy furniture, chair legs, etc. due to the softness of the material, similar to pine.) I really loved them; the second Mrs. <former husband> ripped them out and replaced with vinyl.

I am delighted with my wideboard pine floors today. Here and there I have some oriental rugs and dhurries.

My parents installed cork floors in their basement two years ago. They are great shock absorbers – as I am a dancer, I’ve tried countless times to do leaps and jumps on that floor, but could never seem to bounce off of them. They are surprisingly resilient but, as @gailcalled mentioned, heavy furniture can do some damage. If you try to disperse the weight of your furniture by adding and widening legs, you can save yourself some trouble. I don’t know much about the allergy thing.

I put cork in my lake house two years ago. I rent the place out in the winter. They look great. Seem to clean up very nicely. I really love them!