Budget buster....flooring!

[cjnix29]

Holy cow....just got an estimate for new floors in our house, and I about had a heart attack!! Why would I pay $2000 for vinyl floors?! That's installed price, but holy moly! What I really want is about 3800. Guess I will be looking at my old ugly vinyl floors for quite awhile!! $2k would get me a trip to WDW...would much rather have that! lol

 

[Mom2micayla]

I totally feel ya, except we're pricing out tile & wood, and it's . I'm looking at closer to the 10k figure. And that's with friends of ours (who own their own company) doing it for not much of a profit.

btw.. 2k for vinyl? Dang! How much sq footage are you doing?

 

[ekatiel]

We're putting in Allure resilliant plank flooring this weekend (wish us luck!!) in our kitchen and living room-- both fairly large rooms. It's costing us about $1100 for the flooring-- it is self install. The planks are actually made from vinyl, but it looks like laminate or wood. The planks "float" like a laminate flooring does. They stick to each other, but not to the sub-floor. You can install it on top of existing vinyl flooring. We've already installed it in our secondary bathroom and we really like it. It's got a 25 year warranty. As far as flooring options go, it's cheap, and it looks good. Here's a pic of the bathroom we've already done:

Anyhow-- Just an option to look into. --Katie

 

[cjnix29]

It was about 450 sq ft. It's a strange layout, which may be part of it. But I am thinking it'a a No on it. I've been looking online at prices, and can't quite figure out why it is so much. But we'll see.

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

We're putting in Allure resilliant plank flooring this weekend (wish us luck!!) in our kitchen and living room-- both fairly large rooms. It's costing us about $1100 for the flooring-- it is self install. The planks are actually made from vinyl, but it looks like laminate or wood. The planks "float" like a laminate flooring does. They stick to each other, but not to the sub-floor. You can install it on top of existing vinyl flooring. We've already installed it in our secondary bathroom and we really like it. It's got a 25 year warranty. As far as flooring options go, it's cheap, and it looks good. Here's a pic of the bathroom we've already done:

Anyhow-- Just an option to look into. --Katie

Wow, that is really pretty! What's the name of the color you used?
My DH & I were just talking about having laminate wood on the entire main level of our house and this looks nice. You did a nice job!

 

[ekatiel]

Wow, that is really pretty! What's the name of the color you used?
My DH & I were just talking about having laminate wood on the entire main level of our house and this looks nice. You did a nice job!

Thanks! It's cherry. They keep it in stock at Home Depot. They have about 15 different varities to choose from. Most are special order, but I think they keep about 4 kinds in stock. It was actually really easy to install. You cut the planks by scoring them with box cutters and then snapping them. We didn't need any special tools to install it. The cherry (and the other in stock varieties are only $1.79 a square foot. The special order ones are $1.99 sq ft). The real selling point for us was that it's water-resistant, so you can intall in in places like kitchens and bathrooms without having to worry about cleaning up spills right away. --Katie

 

[debf]

Floors are expensive! We put new flooring in and it's beautiful. We spent $4,000 on it. We did our kitchen and two living rooms.It's the reason we aren't going to Disney this year.

 

[taymaesmom]

We've been doing ours room by room to make the sticker shock less. Of course we did the work ourselves so that helps but we have managed to put laminate in 3 bedrooms and the living room. Next up is the hallway, its actually is quite long and is costing as much as one of the bedrooms! After that we will do both bathrooms and eventually the kitchen.

 

[tinkerbelletreasure]

We're putting in Allure resilliant plank flooring this weekend (wish us luck!!) in our kitchen and living room-- both fairly large rooms. It's costing us about $1100 for the flooring-- it is self install. The planks are actually made from vinyl, but it looks like laminate or wood. The planks "float" like a laminate flooring does. They stick to each other, but not to the sub-floor. You can install it on top of existing vinyl flooring. We've already installed it in our secondary bathroom and we really like it. It's got a 25 year warranty. As far as flooring options go, it's cheap, and it looks good. Here's a pic of the bathroom we've already done:

Anyhow-- Just an option to look into. --Katie

I did this to my kitchen 2 years ago and I LOVE it!!! I get so many compliments on it and no one came believe that my husband and I installed it ourselves. It has really held up well too for such a high traffic area. Occasionally I'll have a corner lift if one of the kids spill liquid and don't clean it up, but usually a day or so of something heavy on it will make it go right back down.

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

Thanks! It's cherry. They keep it in stock at Home Depot. They have about 15 different varities to choose from. Most are special order, but I think they keep about 4 kinds in stock. It was actually really easy to install. You cut the planks by scoring them with box cutters and then snapping them. We didn't need any special tools to install it. The cherry (and the other in stock varieties are only $1.79 a square foot. The special order ones are $1.99 sq ft). The real selling point for us was that it's water-resistant, so you can intall in in places like kitchens and bathrooms without having to worry about cleaning up spills right away. --Katie

Thanks for the information Katie. I went on Home Depot's website and viewed the brochure for the Allure line of plank flooring online. The brochure looked familiar to me and then I realized my MIL had actually given me a hardcopy of one about a month ago. My MIL had gone to a garage sale and struck up a conversation with the homeowner. Some how they got on the subject of flooring and the woman ended up bringing my MIL into her house to show her the new flooring that she just installed (and loved!) and gave my MIL the brochure.

 

[Cindy B]

We put the Allure flooring down on our kitchen and it looks great. It was very easy to install and the price was fantastic.

 

[windycitymom]

Wow! That looks amazing! Thanks for posting the picture. We have 20 year old Armstrong vinyl flooring in our kitchen and need new flooring. So, you are saying that it goes right on top of that? What does the 25 year warranty cover?

Did you move your appliances and put the flooring throughout the entire kitchen? If so, how did you move your refrigerator? Does it leave scratches?How long did it take you to install? Is it really that easy to install? Any installation tips?

It seems almost too good to be true. It looks great and the price is right. I like that it's water resistant because we have a pool and always go from the deck, into the kitchen to reach the bathroom.

I'm excited about this - thanks for posting!

 

[jessiesue]

We installed Sam's wood laminate around a year ago for $1500. We put it in four nice size bdrms and a good size dining room. Don't know if it is water resistant but we love it.

 

[disneybound31]

We're putting in Allure resilliant plank flooring this weekend (wish us luck!!) in our kitchen and living room-- both fairly large rooms. It's costing us about $1100 for the flooring-- it is self install. The planks are actually made from vinyl, but it looks like laminate or wood. The planks "float" like a laminate flooring does. They stick to each other, but not to the sub-floor. You can install it on top of existing vinyl flooring. We've already installed it in our secondary bathroom and we really like it. It's got a 25 year warranty. As far as flooring options go, it's cheap, and it looks good. Here's a pic of the bathroom we've already done:

Anyhow-- Just an option to look into. --Katie

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.

 

[horseshowmom]

We're putting in Allure resilliant plank flooring this weekend (wish us luck!!) in our kitchen and living room-- both fairly large rooms. It's costing us about $1100 for the flooring-- it is self install. The planks are actually made from vinyl, but it looks like laminate or wood. The planks "float" like a laminate flooring does. They stick to each other, but not to the sub-floor. You can install it on top of existing vinyl flooring. We've already installed it in our secondary bathroom and we really like it. It's got a 25 year warranty. As far as flooring options go, it's cheap, and it looks good.

Anyhow-- Just an option to look into. --Katie

I really like this!

Several years ago, we put in vinyl throughout the house due to allergies. I like it fine (it's the tile look kind), but our living room, dining room, kitchen area is pretty big, and they had piece it together in a large doorway between the LR and DR. That area has started to come apart and doesn't look too good.

This looks like a great option to put over what we have now.

 

[mistysue]

Did you move your appliances and put the flooring throughout the entire kitchen? If so, how did you move your refrigerator? Does it leave scratches?How long did it take you to install? Is it really that easy to install? Any installation tips?

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.

 

[Alexander]

DH just put Allure plank flooring in our bathroom (on Monday actually) and it looks great! We didn't remove baseboards, we just caulked around the edges, (which you want to do in a bathroom anyway) but for other rooms, you either remove the baseboards and then put them back or you can buy 1/4 round that matches (or you can stain it yourself) and put that along the edges.

 

[kjs1976]

DH installed and then sold flooring for 14 years. I know at Lowe's they will price match and then give 10% off if you have an ad or they can call the other store and verify their price. Lowe's is very good at working with the customer to get the best deal. At least our Lowe's does!

 

[Lucky4me]

We looked for replacement flooring for five years until we decided on something called Novalis vinyl planking. (Lowes) Funny thing is, it was the cheapest out of everything we looked at. I think .99 a sq foot.
The golden oak color looks the best, most realistic, I think.
We tore out all the carpet and vinyl in the kitchen/family room. Laid down Luan (sp) for uniformity. Used the primer they suggested and it turned out fantastic!
Looks better than most higher end laminates. Holds up to pool water, pets, kids, toys, dropped knives, any and everything. We've had it over a year and people still come in and marvel at our "new wood floor". It's hysterical. I think it cost a total of $500? We were looking at $$$$$ if we went with the laminate that didn't even look as good. Once we got over the peel and stick aspect of it, we were fine. :lol It was the easiest thing to install and has stayed down wonderfully because we did what they said to do for the underlayment. If you go right over and existing vinyl floor, I think it's easier.

Here is a link to a website where they talk about it and some photos.
I haven't had any of the scratching problems a couple people talk about on the thread. Scroll down for pics.
http://www.thathomesite.com/forums/load/flooring/msg0911023312366.html

 

[cvjw]

We just had new floors installed in almost our entire house. The most expensive was the new carpet. It ended up being over $7000 for our living room, family room, 3 sets of stairs and our entire upper level. I think we must have picked out an expensive carpet (it's called snuggles), but wow, do we love it. It is so soft to walk on! On our basement level, we put in the fake wood floors that snap together and "float". For about 800 square feet, we paid $3400. These fake wood floors are prettier than our real wood floors on the middle level of our house.