Budget buster....flooring!

[Lucky4me]

I will never have carpet in my home again. Even the nicest wall to wall holds in so much dust and dirt, especially with pets and kids running around. When I think about the thousands of dollars I've spent over the years on carpet, I cringe.
I also like the idea of switching out area rugs for a different look every once in awhile.
If I had the money, I'd have all top of the line tile and wood in my house. I don't think anything beats those as far as looks and durability.
But on a very tight budget, the fake wood planks are awesome!

 

[3girlsfun]

I know how you feel about flooring. When we built our house, it was a huge expense. However, this is how I dealt with it. I went to the flooring guy and told him how much money I had left in our building budget. (It was the last thing we did.) I begged and pleaded. He sold it to me at his cost to get the wood, and him and his son installed it. I saved over $1500 on the hardwood alone!

Also, when we finished in our basement, we put in carpet. I couldn't believe it, but, we found the best deal at Home Depot.

 

[katied]

Really looks good! How did you know how to get it under the baseboards? Did you remove and then re-install them or cut them? How did you cut the planks?

TIA...looking for a more affordable way to cover our ugly vinyl kitchen/dining floor...DH wants tile, but its 8k+ for the size of the room.

$8K for tile!! What kind of tile is it? We priced tile for the basement. DH wanted marble to start with, but that was about $10K (for around 1,000 sq feet). We ended up with a nice ceramic - cost of tile and all materials was around $3,000, and DH is installing it. We already have the tile saw. The only drawback is it will probably be several months before it's done, juggling his time, but I'd rather wait that spend a ton of $ (and since it's the basement, it is easier to deal with it partially done, and he is working room by room on it). Also, with a new baby, we need to be careful with money.

 

[disneybound31]

These types of flooring go in really quickly. Usually your fridge is on wheels, I would worry more about the stove or dishwasher! We used a large cardboard box under those to prevent scratching, but one corner of the fridge came off and we put a huge dent in our floor.

Home depot also has these laminate snap in flooring tiles. They are maybe 12" x 3' and super easy to install. My front entry and downstairs bathroom look like stone flooring for about $150. We put bamboo through the rest of our downstairs (about 600 sq ft) for $800 from Costco. If you can do it, bamboo is really nice because as a wood it can get flooded and goes back to original shape. Right after we installed it, the fridge leaked all over... the next day it was the diskwasher. If it were laminate or another wood it would have been ruined by the amount of water, but the bamboo sprung back to original condition after a couple days. It is also environmentally better to use.

Is there any way you could post a pic of your snap tile flooring? Sounds very interesting...do you remember the manufacturing name?

 

[chewbacca]

I feel your pain! We really needed a new kitchen floor since our vinyl was stained from the rubber backing on our rugs. We estimated the cost of tile to be about $4000.00 for 370 sq ft to have it installed. Luckily my brother offered to do it for us and we only had to feed him during the project. He said it was the hardest job he has ever tiled having 4 closets and a half bath to do. Over 60% of the tile had to be cut to fit.

It looks so much better and I am so thankful that he saved us alot of $$$.

 

[disneybound31]

$8K for tile!! What kind of tile is it? We priced tile for the basement. DH wanted marble to start with, but that was about $10K (for around 1,000 sq feet). We ended up with a nice ceramic - cost of tile and all materials was around $3,000, and DH is installing it. We already have the tile saw. The only drawback is it will probably be several months before it's done, juggling his time, but I'd rather wait that spend a ton of $ (and since it's the basement, it is easier to deal with it partially done, and he is working room by room on it). Also, with a new baby, we need to be careful with money.

It was a ceramic porcelain- apparently I unknowingly picked the most expensive type of tile they carry and then they would need to lay a sub-floor before tile installation. It IS a large area...around 900 sq feet. We have a combo kitchen/dining room and actually that price included the laundry room as well for uniformity- I believe the laundry room alone was $1600. That room is tiny- like 8 by 6.

Also, we are not at all handy and could not do any install ourselves--although I am willing to try to learn to do that Allure or snap together tile for the huge savings. We plan to stay in the house forever and so do not need to worry about re-sell or others preferences.

 

[Dizneydaz]

When we first moved into our house (10 years ago) we had builder's grade vinyl and carpet downstairs. We quickly replaced the vinyl and carpet in the kitchen and famly room (one big room) with laminate that we bought at Sam's. It went in easiily and was pretty easy to install (did it ourselves). We were happy enough with it at first that we, about 1 year later, installed the same flooring in the Dining and Living Rooms.

A few years ago we had a minor leak under our kitchen sink (connection from sink filter blew) and with it only leaking for 10 mins. we got enough water on the family/kitchen floor that it was ruined. Our insurance carrier figured replacement of all of our downstairs floor since we wouldn't be able to match it. By this time we were no longer enamoured of our laminate. It was actually a fairly high maintenance floor. All spots showed and you had to constantly dust it. If it was a darker floor, it would have been even worse.

So we were ready for a change. About a year before my DSis and her DH put tile in their house. We liked the look of it and we decided to replace our floor with tile. It took us awhile to chose our tile but we ended up chosing the same tile as my DSis, but in a different color. Ours is browner than hers. Our tile is more dirt color, which is great!

We used Dal-Tile which we had to special order from Home Depot. It was only $1.79 p.s.f. which is a great place for domestic tile. We installed it ourselves so we saved on labor. We laid it in the kitchen , family room, laundy room and downstairs bath. We left the living room and dining room to be carpeted. (we were able to find enough of a remnant for these 2 rooms.) I believe we laid about 1000 or so sq. ft. of tile. With tile, mortar and grout, it costs us around $2500, or less.

We absolutely love having tile. And I never thought I would. It looks great most of the time and since we chose the color and pattern we did, it barely shows dirt. So much easier to take care of than the laminate.

Here's a picture of our tile in our entry, next to the Dining Room carpet.

The carpet is less gray in person than in this photo.

Tile is not as daunting as it seems. However, if you have wood underlayment you will have additional expense-you'll need cement board.

I believe our tile is procelain. We used 12" and 18" square tiles. I loved laying the larger tiles. Took so much less time.