wood floors on a budget

[My2CrazyGirls]

We want to rip out our old carpets and install wood. We want real wood and we do not like "grainy" wood. We like Maple but that tends to be pricey. Does anyone have Bamboo floors? Do you like them? We want to do the whole main level so it is not just a tiny little room. I will get the square footage later today.

 

[neatokimmo]

I personally don't like bamboo, it looks polka dot when down.

Look at www.br111.com They provide floors for our local stores and allow direct buys. You save quite a bit. We are going with chestnut.

Don't forget extras when doing your numbers. If you are putting it on concrete, add another $2 a SF for the adhesive. Stair treads are wicked expensive too.

 

[cornflake]

Bamboo is sortof super grainy looking to me.

Maple comes in various grades and can be had decently cheaply - where are you looking? If you're looking for prefinished, try Lumber Liquidators, they're awesome.

 

[neatokimmo]

I thought of something else, if you do bamboo, do the caramelized strand kind. It has a hardness rating in the high 2000s. Oak is like 1200.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

We have dark bamboo floors on the upper level of our house, which we had installed when we moved in. Keep in mind that bamboo is not really a wood, it is a grass. I think they look great and have held up very well (5 1/2 years). I would put them in again. We have 2 dogs and I can see that on the floor outside of our bedroom door, that they have made very faint indentations in a few places with their claws. A family member has hardwood floors in her new house and you should see how her dogs have damaged it with their claws. I think the bamboo (which is harder) has held up much better.

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

Thanks

I think it comes down to quality of the wood or bamboo. I wish we liked Oak, because overall that is a good wood for flooring. I wonder if there is Oak that is not so grainy? I really can't stand grainy wood! We had ash (very similar to oak) in a previous home and it was nice because it was stained medium/dark. But we want to go with a much lighter stain here, and then we will really be seeing grain with Oak.

I have read many conflicting things with bamboo, it is confusing!

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

We have bamboo hardwood and LOVE it! Ours is the light "natural" not darker caramalized (or whatever they call it). We have 2 dogs and 3 cats and it is holding up really well even with the large dog.

We had a flood downstairs and had contracters in from the insurance company to replace the bamboo etc - they commented that it holds up much better than oak / other hardwoods. Specifically they said if we had another wood it would be scratched/ dented from the dogs.

Got ours at Lumber Liquidators and installed it ourselves (a fair amount of works but saved us a ton of $$).

 

[neatokimmo]

From what I understand (I have been researching hardwood until my eyes cross) that scratching is from the finish. Some manufacturers have better finishes. Dents and gouges are based on the hardness.

So if you have animals, I'd go with a manufacturer that is known for their finishes. Get a sample, take a nail to it. I took a maple sample and a caramelized bamboo sample from lowes and did that. The maple was awful, I could have carved my name in it (although I loved the look of the maple). The bamboo just scratched. My friend has young bamboo and she hates it because it is gouged and scratched.

Anyway, here is the scale:

http://www.woodsthebest.com/wood/jankaWoodHardnessScale.htm

We choose Tiete Chestnut because it is the last floor I will ever have installed. We bought a fixer for a great price so we have some wiggle room in the budget. But really it comes out to twice the cost of carpet. So in the end, the hardwood will be less expensive.

 

[Cindy B]

I would suggest going to Lumber Liquidators. We just got our floors done and they are gorgeous. We could have installed it ourselves, but we had about 6 other projects going on, Dh decided to pay for install.

We actually like the rustic grainy look, so we went with a Red Oak Natural prefinished wood. It is beautiful.

It truly changes the look and feel of the house. It looks much warmer and inviting.

We liked the way the floor looked we decided to pull up the carpet on the steps and have them refinished in a natural shade as well.

 

[JennyWren]

Do you have a local building supply/salvage place? You may be able to find exactly what you want very reasonable. The place we have nearby not only gets salvage from historical places that are being torn down, but also get overstock and remnants from businesses and contractors. It might be worth looking into.

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

Thank you for the replies. We really like the look of Maple the best, but apparently it scratches easily. We know Oak is good but we just don't know if we can handle the grainy aspect of it. In researching bamboo, it is mostly made in China. The installer that measured our SF said he has not had good experiences with bamboo.

The hardest thing is really finding quality wood at a good price.

 

[arthuruscg]

I have installed a lot of different floors in my parents house, friends and my house.
The bamboo floors went down the quickest and easiest. Since Bamboo is a manufactured floor, every piece is straight, and there is a very low reject / defect level. Depending on what type of bamboo floor you are getting will change the look. We installed solid natural strained in my house. The floor is thick enough to have a few resurfacing done.

My German Shepard has not scratched up the floor yet but the wife has managed to scratch up the "T" trim pieces that bridge the different floor together. I think a different company made the trim pieces since the original finish texture is different and they used a inferior finish.

 

[Muushka]

Oak floors have the most beautiful grain. Ours has a darker stain and I love them.

 

[mistysue]

My entire downstairs is bamboo. We got it at costco for under $2/sq ft. Within a week of putting it in we had a flood and you can't even tell. I am so glad we didn't go with anything else there! Whatever you go with, just be sure that if you get pieces that have a natural gap between them that you look into some sort of surface finish. You can actually dig out a thin line of dirt from between each of our panels.
We just are finishing up replacing carpet in all our bedrooms with those click together laminate panels from Home depot and some of the new laminates really look and feel like real wood. My boys' room was just $1.98/ft plus a $30 roll of under layment and you can't tell it's laminate. For that cheap I can redo it every 5 years if it gets dented. Replacing it is about the same cost as having wood refinished.

 

[PatMcDuck]

Not to get completely off track (we want to do the whole house in wood before we put it up for sale next year)........

What color seems the most popular now? We will be selling the house (we hope) about a year or less after the install, so it is not just for me. Our house is contemporary and is bright inside, and I like the darker hardwoods.

This leaves me with also having to strip and restain the stair banister to match the new floors, right? It THAT a hard job?

 

[Cindy B]

Not to get completely off track (we want to do the whole house in wood before we put it up for sale next year)........

What color seems the most popular now? We will be selling the house (we hope) about a year or less after the install, so it is not just for me. Our house is contemporary and is bright inside, and I like the darker hardwoods.

This leaves me with also having to strip and restain the stair banister to match the new floors, right? It THAT a hard job?

I was told if you want the place to appear bigger is a lighter floor, smaller width boards. In kitchens can go with bigger width boards because the size of the appliances will counterbalance.

We are doing the same thing (getting a house ready to sell). We went with a generic middle of the road color- red oak natural. I looked at other homes for sale and the type of home I have (smaller Cape Cod style). Most of the homes in my area are older homes- so not a lot of dramatic woods or even dark colors. I see a lot of oak or other domestic wood. The previous hardwood in the house was a maple.

If you have a contemporary looking home, a darker hardwood may be nicer. I'd go to a flooring store and take some large samples home to check out. We actually had to go darker because our first few picks were too light.

As for steps, yes we are doing this right now. See it is a vicious cycle. First you do the floor and see that the steps look awful compared to. Get steps refinished to natural wood. Attempt to put on original balusters, handrails and newels and realize they look like crap compared to new floor. Strip, stain and repaint. Attempt to do again and realize they still look like crap.

Get catalogs from stair parts stores and Home Depot to see what you like and what. Order new.

Depending on the wood on your handrail, it may be a pain in the #$$ to strip and restain. If it is pine, it will be blotchy no matter what- even if you use preconditioner, sand, redo and sand again. (Ask me how I know this).

I really wouldn't attempt it -even though it sounds easy.

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

I really want Maple! The more I look the more I like it so much better than Oak! I have read conflicting things....some say Oak holds up better, and other's say Maple does. I thik hard Maple is actually harder than Oak but the problem is the scratches show up more. Does anyone have Maple floors? How are they?

Thanks again!

 

[mom2threecuties]

Where are you located? We live in Atlanta and just put in new hardwoods. We got a great price from an overstock dealer.

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

Where are you located? We live in Atlanta and just put in new hardwoods. We got a great price from an overstock dealer.

MD, and we r going to a discount place today. We want to find something decent for 5 a SF. We dont want the lowest grade and crappy brand, so we will see if we can keep it in the 5 range or not.

 

[Cindy B]

You may be able to do it. Keep looking if you don't find what you want. We looked at the following places:

Independent Floor/Tile store
Lowe's
Home Depot
Lumber Liquidators

We wound up going with Lumber Liquidators.