Redoing floors in my home.... Need opinions

[ksstang]

So my wife and I have decided that we're going to tear the 2yr old builders grade carpet out of our house we bought, and change it up a bit. We are going to leave carpet in the bedrooms.

Our master bath and hallway bath will be getting 12"x12" ceramic tile.

Our front living room (currently carpet) hallway (currently carpet) Kitchen (currently linoleum) and back family room (currently carpet) we are wanting to do something different with.

I used to lay hard surface flooring for a living, but I got out of it roughly 12 years ago. I will be doing all the work, but as I say, I've been out of it so long I honestly don't know what the best option would be to go with.

We originally thought about doing the laminate wood looking snap together flooring through all of it considering we have 3 dogs that are pretty active, and everyone says that it holds up really really well to scratching, etc. But, the downfall is it doesn't hold up to water. With 3 dogs and drinking a lot, dripping water on kitchen floors, etc, I just don't see that being smart.

I then thought about doing the laminate in both living rooms, and hallway, and then ceramic tile in the kitchen.

I've had a few recommendations of the luxury vinyl flooring planks throughout it all. I just haven't worked much with it, and don't know much about it.

Also thought about real hardwood throughout the whole thing.

We are just so up in the air, that I honestly don't know which way to go. The house is on a concrete slab, so no wood subfloor to be going on. We just want something that's going to hold up well, last awhile, and look good!

So, anyone with experience and can provide some good opinions it would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Kyle

 

[65x2]

I have the laminate Harwood through my living room and hallway, with real hardwood in the bedrooms.

The bedrooms you can tell which ones the dogs have been in from the marks on the floor, the laminate all looks fine after 10 years of dog travel. I feed/water mine in the kitchen since its tile.

 

[Torch10th]

We have an engineered hardwood in our house and our dogs have damaged it a good bit in just the year and a half that we've had the place.

If you have big dogs that are active I would steer you towards tile as even quality laminate is going to take a beating. If I had it to do again I would have gone with a hand scraped look porcelain tile instead of the wood. We specifically went engineered hardwood because of the dogs and everyone told us it would hold up. It doesn't. At least not to two 80 lb lab/retrievers that run around like rampaging wildebeest.

 

[nxhappy]

the laminate "wood" should be water resistant. It is pretty scratch resistant as well.

 

[DriftwoodSVT]

We are doing our new build with a wood looking ceramic tile. Something like this:

 

[Kewlv8]

I would look at Wood-Look ceramic tile, it is great stuff.

 

[ksstang]

I have been considering that wood looking ceramic tile.

 

[OIC]

Agree 100% with Torch10th - Our engineered hardwood floors need a complete redo after 6 years and two dogs! When the dogs and kids are gone, we will see if it better to redo these or start from scratch. These floors are WAY to soft for a normal family!

 

[ksstang]

That's what I'm worried about is dogs tearing it up. I've heard the laminate wood is a lot more durable than the engineered wood.

We have a very active German Shorthair pointer, a boxer, and a smaller dog. They all run and play pretty crazy at times. I dang sure don't want to lay near 700sqft of whatever and it be torn up and ruined after little to no time! Starting to lean towards doing the wood looking ceramic tile.

 

[Torch10th]

That's what I'm worried about is dogs tearing it up. I've heard the laminate wood is a lot more durable than the engineered wood.

We have a very active German Shorthair pointer, a boxer, and a smaller dog. They all run and play pretty crazy at times. I dang sure don't want to lay near 700sqft of whatever and it be torn up and ruined after little to no time! Starting to lean towards doing the wood looking ceramic tile.

1000% over this is the direction I would go if you have active dogs and children that play inside.

 

[Blackoyote]

There is no substitutions for some good old fashioned true hardwoods...and in a nice house, I think the 'engineered' floors add a cheap feel to it. Plus, you can re-finish real floors every 5-10 years as necessary in a fairly short weekend.

 

[Torch10th]

There is no substitutions for some good old fashioned true hardwoods...and in a nice house, I think the 'engineered' floors add a cheap feel to it. Plus, you can re-finish real floors every 5-10 years as necessary in a fairly short weekend.

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but true hardwoods don't hold up as well as engineered hardwood or laminates and refinishing may be needed more often than 5-10 years depending on usage. Refinishing is also a destructive process, so if you're having to refinish every 2 years or so, even a true hardwood won't last long before it's too thin to be redone.

If it's just you and the misses, go with hardwoods for sure.

Adding kids, their toys, dogs, their nails and toys and multiply that by three in the OP's case, tile is the best route to go from a cost/maintenance/longevity standpoint.

 

[2000gt4.6]

I did the wood look porcelain tile in our basement. IMO it looks amazing. 2+years later and its looks like day one with 3 dogs in the house.

The only bad thing is, being laid on concrete, its pretty cold to the feet even in socks.

IDK if its true but IMO you can have too much tile, porcelain or not. I'm ready to replace the upstairs carpet and I think I'm going engineered hardwood.

 

[GM Nitemare]

I have real 3/4" hardwood in my living room, dining room and master bedroom. It's been down for over 17 years and is in near perfect condition. Had 4 kids, 2 cats and 1 dog through all of this too. It is Mirage hardwood.

 

[ksstang]

For those of you that have done the tile looking wood route, how big of grout joints did you go with? I would think the smaller the better.

 

[2000gt4.6]

For those of you that have done the tile looking wood route, how big of grout joints did you go with? I would think the smaller the better.

They recommend the small ones, that's what I did. I think 1/4?

 

[DJinAC]

Kyle,
For what it's worth I have 3 small dogs that run through out the house. I installed the 9/16" strand bamboo (dark brown finish) flooring and they have not scratched the finish. We installed felt pads on all the furniture legs and it's been in for three years now and no major issue with the finish. I hope that was helpful.

DJ

 

[dom418]

Ceramic hardwood looks best in a basement. For a first floor red or white oak stained to your liking can't be beat for warmth and resale.

You never see a realtor add boast about laminate or ceramic tile throughout. Just saying. Do it once and do it right

Plus real wood can be re sanded a number of times to made to look like new. Laminate and ceramic resist scratches better though.

 

[black92]

Did the ceramic tile wood looking stuff in my father-in-laws basement. I LOVE it and it looks pretty darn good. It was a lot of work, but the end result is far worth it in my opinion.

 

[Crimson2v]

If you have a first floor slab you can't use real hardwoods unfortunately. We are thinking of the porcelain tile with the look of wood. My biggest concer would be having to walk on a cold floor.