We have regular hardwood floors in the kitchen, dining room, living room, foyer, three bathrooms, and the upstairs and downstairs hallways. Only the den, family room and bedrooms have carpet. One bath has tile. I have had the kitchen refinished twice in 22 years, but with a total of 3 dogs and 4 boys, that's reasonable. Consider moisture cure polyurethane for a refinishing product. We had it done while we were on vacation, so fumes wouldn't be an issue. I think that it has held up very well.
Dawn, I'm glad you posted that. I'm one who just can't get past the look of laminate although they are looking better today than they used to. It still looks fake to me.
If we sell our home, we know we need to do something about the carpeting. Everyone wants wood today, and some people just don't like laminate.
We have 3 stories in our home. Like a split level with another level on top. So lots of stairs and landings. Whatever we pick, I want to use everywhere otherwise it will be very choppy in the flooring dept.
I've heard laminate is a bad choice for stairs because they say its slippery. I have a small foyer that gets rain & snow tracked in. And another small foyer down a couple of stairs that comes in from the garage so it gets dirty.
So its foyer, about 7 stairs, foyer, turn & 7 stairs, living room hall/entrance, turn & 7 stairs, landing, turn & 7 stairs, onto upstairs hallway & into bedrooms.
Our neighbors put wood on their stairs. Its noisey. Vinyl at the foyers and carpet in the hallways, living & bedrooms. Hardwood in the dining room. Vinyl in the kitchen & tile in the baths.
Way too choppy when the entire place is only 1300 sq ft.
Its nice to know the (real) hardwood could stand up to moisture at the foyer since you have it in your foyer, kitchen & baths.
No kids & no dogs. We take our shoes off at the door & use an area rug to collect the snow, rain & dirt. The carpet still shows dirt from the garage & on the stair edges though no matter how hard you try.
The noise factor of wood everywhere still scares me a lot. And the blahness of wood floors, wood trim & doors & wood furniture. I would seriously need some color!!!! Big area rugs for color & sound. And the white walls would need to go. Our color comes from our carpet now.
I vote for a lighter color rather than darker. Tooooo many stories online of people who vac / swifter & able to see dust & footprints within an hour. Advantage of carpet.....can't see dust. lol I hate having to change the flooring for someone else & then possibly ending up having to stay here & live with it. Don't want to spend my life dusting floors.
