Flooring help

[luvmyfam444]

We are looking for what we want to do in our living room & hallway.

We are looknig into carpet, laminate or hardwood.

Have you put new flooring down (or paid someone to do it)? What did you choose & are you happy with it?

And while your at it....is it in a high traffic area? We are looking at the main area of the house with 3 kids & a dog...

 

[nathalee81]

We are looking for what we want to do in our living room & hallway.

We are looknig into carpet, laminate or hardwood.

Have you put new flooring down (or paid someone to do it)? What did you choose & are you happy with it?

And while your at it....is it in a high traffic area? We are looking at the main area of the house with 3 kids & a dog...

Have you considered tile? This is what we have in our high traffic areas.

We had laminate and it "puckered" when our doggies had accidents. As in, the laminate is not "sealed" so, water and any other fluids can get underneath and then "pucker" the floor. It wasn't pretty. However, this was a few years ago and we did opt for a cheap brand, so maybe there have been improvements?

Also, I believe (and, please, someone correct me if I am wrong), dogs will damage hardwoods with their nails?

I would never have carpet in high traffic areas again. It is just too hard to clean up after a mess (dragging the steam vacuum out every time our pups had an accident or if I spilled something). Also (and it could have been the cheap carpet), it never seemed I could get the dog hair out of the carpet. The carpet just never seemed "clean" to me.

So, yes, we went through three different types of flooring in 7 years. Tile has been the best. I love it. Messes are just wiped up, and I use a Swiffer mop a couple of times a week to clean the whole floor. The only drawbacks are the floors are very cold during the winter (but I live in a place where winter is a couple of weeks!). Our summers our very hot, so I think the tile actually is a blessing during the summer!

Good luck in choosing your flooring!

 

[rie'smom]

We also have ceramic tile in our high traffic areas except in the playroom. In there we put down vinyl wood planks. They look like wood but are durable and easy to clean.

 

[wdwmom2]

We just replaced all the flooring on the first floor of our home. We had a local flooring company that we have dealt with before do all the work.

We originally had carpeting in our living room and hallway, never again. Very high traffic area! In this area we went with hardwood. I could not be happier!!! We had 5 inch hickory put down. Very easy to clean, much less dusting to do on cleaning day!!!

Our home is older, built in 1942, and there was prep work to do. There was actually hardwood under our carpet, but we chose not to refinish it. There were places that were not completely level. Some places they had to sand it down, and some places they had to build it up. They screwed down the original hardwood so that there were no squeaks in the floor. We are very pleased with the work the installers did for us.

We have no dogs, so don't have to worry about nails scratching the finish. But we do have 2 cats that like to run the Daytona 500 nightly.

 

[golfgal]

We replaced the pink carpet in our old house with finished on site red oak 1 1/2" boards and I LOVED that. It was so easy to keep up, cut down DRAMATICALLY on the dust and looks so warm. I would swiffer the floors every so often and used Orange Glow hardwood floor cleaner with a microfiber mop as needed. I REALLY miss those floors. We have plans to do the same here, eventually, when we are done paying for the kids' college most likely.

We now rent out our old house and the floors are still in great shape. The installer we used was amazing. He also put 3 coats of poly on the floors and to this day they are still scratch free--even as a rental.

 

[luvmyfam444]

I would definitely think the tile would be sooo cold! We have tile in the kitchen & my feet FREEZE in the winter (I stay barefoot that would be part of the problem!) - I hate to go in there. And I'm in the deep south.

I briefly thought of painted concrete -but again COLD!

We had hardwood in our last house - original floors to the 1954 house. They were nice - but they collected so much dust/dirt - LOL of course we didn't have grass @ that house that would be the main reason

 

[twinboysmom]

We have hardwoods, some carpet, and a lot of tile. We have ultra inexpensive builder grade wood in our living, dining, and one hallway. It's now 5 years old and I can't say we have babies it. It still looks pretty good. I also have 3 large indoor dogs. They have not scratched it. We have scratched it with furniture and dinged it up by dropping the phone, the remote, etc. We pulled the carpet out of our bedroom and put down a bamboo floor. I really like it and would do it again. As for the tile, the biggest issue I have is the grout being dirty. We had it sealed and it got dirty pretty quickly. I would consider bamboo or possibly one of the very pricey high end laminates. The man that laid our bamboo recommended it and said the high end laminate was virtually indestructible. I looked at it and it is certainly quite pretty.

 

[mamamary]

We put hardwood floors down in our living/dining room about 1 1/2 years ago. My lab has scratched it so bad. I've had people tell me beforehand that it would be fine but I can't believe the amount of scratches from his nails If it wasn't for that I would say I love my floors.

 

[Melmac]

I don't like carpet and wouldn't consider it so I can't comment on carpet.

We have original hardwood in my house (build in the 40's) and although I love the way it looks, it does scratch easily from my dog. My friend who built her house 5 years ago also put down hardwood and wished she hadn't - her dog's nails also scratched it up.

Everyone I know that has put down laminate has been happy with it. The same friend as above put laminate in her basement and she says it has held up way better than the hardwood. I just laid laminate with my dad and DH a couple of weeks ago and it was very easy. I can't comment on the durability but it looks really nice and cleans up easy.

 

[luvmyfam444]

Actually I guess I shouldn't worry too much about my dogs nails then - she only weighs 4 pounds! And she won't get big (a JAck Russel mix)

I should be more worried about the kids toys scratching it than the dog!

My dh brought up the point that the kids won't want to have sleepovers in the livingroom on cold wood floors. I said rug + sleeping bag = kids who could care less.

 

[tlbwriter]

I could never have laminate with dogs because the sound of claws on laminate drives me nuts! I don't know why. I'd rather have scratched hardwood or filthy carpet than have to listen to that click click click of nail on plastic. But I'm weird that way.

 

[Kitty 34]

We're doing some of our floors this summer so I'm enjoying the replies to this thread.
Like one poster said, our house is old so we're not sure what all we're going to have to do when we pull up the old floor!! DH says definitely some leveling will have to be done as our house has "sunk" a bit in the past few years!!!

Actually we have square real wood tiles down that have lasted forever but have recently really gotten worn. Not sure if we can find similar to replace it as it's been over 30 years.......

I agree with Tlbwriter on the sound of dogs on laminate. My brother had that done and it about drives me nuts hearing their dogs on it!!

 

[luvmyfam444]

I could never have laminate with dogs because the sound of claws on laminate drives me nuts! I don't know why. I'd rather have scratched hardwood or filthy carpet than have to listen to that click click click of nail on plastic. But I'm weird that way.

GOSH! Never thought about that!

 

[woodkins]

We had prefinished hardwoods put down 10 yrs ago when we moved into our home & last year pulled them out and put in tile that looks like dark hardwood. I cannot tell you how many people ask us if we restained our floors! You can't even tell it is tile, but it is soooo much easier to clean and maintain. It can be laid in tons of different patterns and there are a bunch of different color/grains.

 

[arminnie]

I've had everything.

Tile - about 1200 sq. ft. - horrible because the people that put it in used white grout. Never ever ever looked clean even when I scrubbed it by hand with a grout brush. Okay in later place with grey grout.

Laminate - put in in twice. First time high quality pergo - very happy - looked great. Second time - cheaper stuff that puckered and was awful.

Hardwood - pre-finished. Hard to tell it's not laminate except that it scratches. Looks like laminate.

Hardwood - solid hardwood, site finished. This is the best, best, best. But it is very, very difficult to spent the time for site finished. You really have to move out for maybe months. This looks like the wood floors that are really old and have character. No scratching yet.

 

[J3nn78]

We just did bamboo in our house. It is a lot like hardwood, but bamboo is technically a grass. It is a green option because it grows at such a fast rate and does not have the environmental impact that hardwood does. It is also very strong. We have a 50year finish warranty on ours. I LOVE it!

 

[3 MEN AND A BOAT]

i would not have carpet. anyone that has ever removed older carpet from a high traffic area, there is literally a dust trail left underneath wherever people walked regularly.

 

[luvmyfam444]

anyone have any problems with warping?

 

[luvmyfam444]

anyone have any problems with warping?

 

[DrCavin]

anyone have any problems with warping?

Some people say im warped, but i dont think its much of a problem