Carpet or Laminate Wood floors.....Help!

[OnionPatch]

So we've had this money saved up to do our floors. We've lived here for three years now and are only finally getting to them. If you had told me it would be three years before we had a chance to replace the flooring, I would not have moved in here! They are a horrible, gold, sculpted-shag carpet throughout, installed when the house was built in 1983. :puke: It's fraying on the edges and bleached out near the windows. I am ecstatic that we are finally going to replace the flooring.

Ok, so our house is a split-level with the living-kitchen area on the lower level and the bedrooms-bathrooms on the upper level, both levels roughly the same amount of square feet. The whole house is about 1500 sq. ft. We have enough money to install a laminate wood floor throughout if we do the labor ourselves. Or we can do the upstairs with carpeting, installed, which costs roughly the same. Our budget dictates that we have to do the work ourselves if we go with the wood floors. That's not a huge problem because my husband is a skilled carpenter and I'm a pretty good assistant. :) Still, it will be a lot of work and we're wondering if it may be too much and if we should just do the downstairs and have the bedrooms carpeted.

Resale value is a huge consideration because this home is a good chunk of our retirement fund. We will sell it in 7-12 years and move somewhere with a much lower cost of living. We want to get as much as we can from this home. So, my questions are: will laminate wood throughout the home be a bigger selling point in the future? For those of you who have installed laminate wood floors, if we choose to do the whole house are we in for a huge headache? Also, I'm wondering if real wood floors would be better but we have two big dogs and a child and this is a horse property so it's almost a small farm in a way. I'm worried real wood wouldn't hold up well.

We are going to buy the flooring today or tomorrow. I'm afraid if we put off the decision of what to do upstairs, that we will not be able to find the same wood to match if we do decide in the end to do the upstairs in laminate wood.

Any advice?

[NMDemDist2]

1. if you have the option, do the downstairs in wood and carpet the

bedrooms

much cosier that way

if you're handy installing the floors won't be bad. just make sure you let them sit in the house for a couple days to acclimatize and good saws will do the trick

google and get some instructions on installation so you can look it over

also, here's a trick I learned when buying flooring. get two zip lock baggies and go out into the yard and put a couple handfulls of dirt in each bag. when you go shopping, wet the dirt in one bag (so you have mud)

lay the dirt against the samples of both the laminate and carpets and match the color "tone" that way dust won't show and the floors will take less maintenence

:hi:

we want PICS too!

[OnionPatch]

2. That's why we are buying the floor today

So it can sit in the house until the Thanksgiving weekend. We were going to go camping, then decided instead to dive in and get this floor going.

By the way, we are in southern California, so "cozy" isn't the first thing people here are aiming for. But it does get a little chilly in the winter. I think either flooring would work fine.

Thanks for all the tips. I love what you did to your place and all of your pictures so, ok, I'll try to post some pictures, too. I'll post a "before" picture in this thread if I can sometime today or tomorrow. Yikes, I'm almost ashamed to show the "before" :hide:....this floor is horrible!

[NMDemDist2]

3. cool! and thanks! as for "horrible floors" my first house was concrete

slab for a couple years until I could afford flooring

ghastly indeed!

[OnionPatch]

4. Lol....when we first moved in here

I begged my husband (to no avail) to let me rip this awful carpet out and just throw some rugs on the slab temporarily. I think concrete slab would be an improvement. :)

[NMDemDist2]

5. that's what I did. it was (like yours) ghastly yellow shag that was

infested with FLEAS! when that came up, there were old old (1940's) tiles. we would have left them but the glue was dried out and they came up with a spatulata. it was like flipping pancakes I swear!

they were probably asbestos to boot :scared:

I did peel and stick tiles in the hall, bath and dining room pretty fast but it was throw rugs on slab for major sections for months (and in some areas, years)

[Longhorn]

6. I agree with AZ/NM Dem!

We took up the carpet in our living/dining area and replaced it and all the vinyl downstairs with tile. We always have three to four dogs and everything is much easier to clean with hard surfaces. We also have hardwood floors in our office and sunroom.

We recarpeted the bedrooms, however. The only drawback of hard surfaces is that sound is less muted -- there's more reverberation -- it's just plain louder! :) Upholstered furniture, drapes, pillows, and rugs help but otherwise, you just get used to it. I prefer it quieter in the bedrooms, especially with a snoring husband and dogs! In fact, we use a white noise machine to help with that.

We did the tile ourselves and it was hard work but we got it laid in one weekend and grouted the next. It's not perfect but mostly only we know where the mistakes are. I didn't help install the wood flooring but I think wood would be easier, especially on the knees.

Good luck! :hi:

[OnionPatch]

8. And my knees have seen better days

So we may end up with carpeting upstairs. ;)

The noise factor is something I hadn't considered, thanks. And the hubby does snore. I forgot to mention one other issue: He has allergies. To pets, to dust, to pollen, you name it. He takes meds regularly to deal with it and the dogs are banished to the yard and garage 90% of the time because of that. Wouldn't hard floors in the bedroom be better for allergies? I'm wondering if this nasty carpeting isn't partly the cause of his flareups.

[Longhorn]

11. Hard surfaces are probably better for allergies.

I have cat allergies. My allergies are always worse when the cat owner has carpeting rather than hard surfaces. I think it's because it is nearly impossible to vacuum up all the hair and dander but you can sweep and mop it up from hard surfaces.

By the way, hardwood flooring with a polyurathane sealant holds up to water better than you might think. We have maple flooring in the sunroom and office, some of which was recycled from an old high school gym floor and it gets wet all the time from people coming in from the pool, the dogs coming in from the rain, and getting mopped every two weeks and it's holding up fine. Also, hardwood can be patched without tearing up the entire floor.

On edit: My husband says he won't have anything to do with Pergo. As a contractor, he had it installed for a customer once because the customer had used it in a commercial installation and really liked it. Well, one of the guys installing the granite countertops dropped a stone on it and damaged it. My husband couldn't repair it and had to reinstall the entire floor. If a customer asks for it now, he advises them to hire someone else to install it because he won't.

[OnionPatch]

18. Yikes, why did they need to

re-do the entire floor? :shrug: Why can't they just do the part that's messed up? And when you say he won't use Pergo, do you mean just the brand "Pergo" or do you mean any brand of laminate wood flooring? (Some people use "pergo" as a generic term for any brand of laminate wood floor.)

I've seen several nice homes that used laminate wood and they had no complaints.

[Longhorn]

20. The wood tiles are interlocking so you can't just take up one piece.

In this case, the messed up piece was in the middle of the floor, not near the walls, and the customer naturally wanted the repair to look flawless.

He won't use any engineered wood flooring. If the homeowner wants it, he advises them to hire a flooring installer but as a general contractor, he doesn't want to get involved. He's just had too many bad experiences with prefinished flooring in his 30-plus years as a remodeling contractor. Just his opinion.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. I'd go with all laminate floors .....

.... but the choice is as much aesthetic as anything.

We have laminate in our kitchen and in our foyer and it is beyond easy to clean. A quick swipe with a damp mop and its done. Installation was easy, too. We did it ourselves and the more you do the faster it goes. Our kitchen was the hardest because we had to make a lot of cuts to fit it around the counters and peninsula, etc. A normal room would be easier by twice.

Carpet is okay, if you like it. We prefer area rugs (the rest of our house is hardwood floors). That's the aesthetic hoice I refer to. Carpet or laminate ... whichever you like. Your notion of laminate down and carpet up is a good one, too.

A word about laminate ...... there are MANY flavors ...... click-together, glue, glueless, waterproof, water resistent, water-averse ....

I have experience with two kinds. Pergo, as available from Home Depot was in my brother's house and was damaged by water that simply condensed under the cat dish! The end result was it had to all get ripped out. He now has tile.

We used Alloc Original. I STRONGLY and CONFIDENTLY recommend it to anyone who asks.

Alloc Original Lifetime Warranty

Alloc is, in fact, the inventor of the genre and all other brands derive from them and pay them royalties on their patent. Not only that, but theirs is arguably the best on the market. The joints are metal, not pressboard and the flooring is guaranteed against water damage - unlike virtually any other brand. It is even recommended for use in bathrooms. Pergo and the others simply can not match that. It is also one of the very few that is approved for commercial installation. It also has a sound-deadening backing that is easier and more effective than the roll padding the other brands recommend. And no glue is involved.

Now, when you shop for Alloc, be mindful they also make lesser quality stuff - just to compete against the other cheap stuff that's out there. You want Alloc Original, not any of their other flavors.

That link above takes you to the warranty page of their website, but you can go from there to the other parts of the web site to get the whole story.

[OnionPatch]

9. Thanks for the warning on the Pergo.

and for the link. Those look like nice floors. I guess I'm going to have to read up on the different brands because I definitely want it in the kitchen and don't want any that's going to get water damage. That's partly why I wanted laminate instead of real hardwood. My sister and her husband installed a type of Shaw laminate wood floor and had the scraps outside in a pile. She said it began raining and rained for two weeks. When the weather finally cleared up and they were hauling the scrap away, she noticed the pieces we not damaged in the least, even though they had been exposed to two weeks of thunderstorms! So I may check out that kind as well. I would think that any kind that has a warranty would replace it if it was damaged....I would hope, anyway. But who wants to go through the work of ripping it out and reinstalling?

Aesthetically, the wood floors win out for me, every time, no contest. That is also something to consider. But then we would have to do the stairs. How does one do the stairs? It seems like that might be a pain. You wouldn't be able to use the flooring, would you? I guess we would need to buy wood for it? :shrug:

[Stinky The Clown]

10. They make a stair nosing for it

The downside is, their moldings are surprizingly costly.

If your stairs are cheap wood under the carpet, consider this: Clean 'em and stain 'em as best you can, then coat them is a glos polyurethane. Then install a carpet stair runner up the stairs. Allow the wood to show at the edges. Voila, looks like you planned it that way.

[Warpy]

12. Ten coats of gloss polyurethane can make

PLYWOOD look good. I know, I've had enough tables and work surfaces done that way. If the stairs are plywood, just tack some half round around the edges, stain and varnish to match the plywood or trash wood steps. If they're real wood with less than adequate edges, just do the same thing.

If there are knotholes in the cheap wood, fill them with very dark wood filler. You can pass them off as natural.

[OnionPatch]

13. I just ripped some carpet up to see

and it's not plywood as I feared it might be. It's solid wood of some kind, about and inch and a half thick. They look like they might look pretty good stained like you say. Maybe that idea would work on them. I was thinking maybe we could do that on the runners and we could paint the risers the same color as the walls. :shrug: I think a carpet runner is a good idea, too. Wood stairs are slippery and our stairs are fairly steep.

Sounds like an idea. I'll see what the hubby says. He has his own ideas sometimes, so we'll see....

[NMDemDist2]

14. is it possible you have nice wood throughout? n/t

[OnionPatch]

16. No, not possible.

This is a 1983 ranch house. Just from looking at the windows and other fixtures, you can be assured there is no nice wood floor underneath the carpeting but I've already pulled back the carpet to check what we're dealing with. Cement slab downstairs, heavy-duty plywood floor upstairs. I just had never looked at the stairs.

It would have been nice. I always envied people who find nice hardwood under their ratty carpet. Lucky SOBs!!

[Nite Owl]

15. I have two dogs and friends that bring their

dogs, two kids and their friends. It's a regular grand central station most of the time! Wood holds up very, very well. It's just so much easier to keep clean than carpet and it lasts practically forever. It may need to be refinished which if you did it right before you put the house up for sale it would be a spectacular selling point. Real wood can be refinished over and over but if it is screened every 4-5 yrs the finish looks new. The higher the gloss the harder the finish.

Do not ever use wax or oils on polyurethane finishes though, just water maybe with a little white vinegar to clean.

As far as the allergies it helps to not have carpet!

[OnionPatch]

17. Thanks, maybe we'll look at the real wood

while we're there. I love real wood but I'm worried about it being in the kitchen. And one time I had a bad experience with it: I lived in an apartment and had to forfeit my deposit because I had a plant on the floor and some of the moisture left a ring on the wood floor where it sat.

I do think it would be a better selling point to have real wood. We're going to the stores today. We'll see what they have.

[NMDemDist2]

19. don't forget your baggies full of dirt! n/t

[OnionPatch]

23. LOL

Right! That's a great idea, I like it. Actually, I already matched our property-line wood fence paint to the color of the local dirt. I mixed it myself, so I could pick out that color without a swatch or sample. Or maybe I can just wear my hiking boots to the store and I'll just have to hold up my foot. :)

[Longhorn]

21. But all you would have had to do is refinish to get rid of the ring.

Of course, apartment managers look for every excuse they can to hold on to your deposit! :(

Good luck!

[OnionPatch]

25. That's what I was thinking

I should have just fixed it myself before I left. :banghead:

But they probably would have found something else, though, like you said.

[Nite Owl]

22. I have wood in the kitchen also

no problems. The initial expense might be higher but if your husband can install and finish the floor in the long run you'll end up saving.

The drawbacks of wood: wet feet and paws. Remove shows when it snows or rains, wipe the paws at the door

never shove funiture, lift it

I was told not to put down any rugs for a few months until the finish was thouroughly 'set'

Wood steps look nice but a runner would help the dogs when they go running up and down, they are noisy(sort of a nice homey sound though) and slippery.



Refinishing is much cheaper than a new it takes longer and you might have to move out for a day or two. But then it looks like new again.

It really is so much cleaner though especially with kids and pets. One of my dogs is huge shedder and I would be vacuuming at least daily now it's only a broom.


Good luck with your shopping!

[OnionPatch]

26. So how often do you need to refinish the whole thing?

I'm willing to consider real wood but he wants the laminate. He has this idea that with real wood, you have to refinish the whole floor every three years! I'm having a hard time believing that. I think he heard wrong somehow.

[Nite Owl]

28. Complete refinishing, down to the

bare wood is necessary only if there is some severe damage, it if can't be screened. When I moved into this house the previous owners had the floors screened for me before I moved in. Within a few months the poly started to 'peel'. I had to refinish the bottom floor totally. It seems that they waxed the floors and the poly wouldn't adhere.

Screening is pretty much a one day job. It's a light sanding and recoating with the poly finish. When the floor is completely redone it takes a day to sand and then a few days to apply the coats of poly, it's starting from the beginning. Rescreening is fairly inexpensive too maybe $500 for a 1000sq ft while the refinishing was almost 3k.

There is wood flooring that comes prefinished, easier to install and if you aren't going to be there forever would be the easiest way to go. There is a limit as to how many times it can be refinished though, it must be thinner or something but you can put it down and not worry about the poly.

The smell of the application wasn't bad and it wasn't even that messy dust(I was expecting to be finding the sanding dust everywhere for months but it was relatively dustless when he finished) wise but it's inconvenient. We have an apt downstairs so we had to live there for a few days and eat out. All the furniture had to put in the garage and upstairs, it was almost like moving.

As far as resale it isn't like a kitchen or bathroom where you can get most of the money back in resale but people look for wood floors as a selling feature.

[Warpy]

29. Nobody has to move out unless they locate a supply of Fabulon

and do the house in that. I only used it once in an empty house with the windows open, went outside and puked in the shrubbery. That stuff is nasty.

There are some very good water soluble varnishes that are quite durable and won't make you pack your bags for a motel over the weekend.

I discovered it just in time to do the floors I have now.

[OnionPatch]

27. What is "screened"

nt

[OnionPatch]

24. Well, hubby woke up with laryngitis today again

:( He's actually had it since Thursday. We thought he'd be better by now. Usually colds and flus bounce right off of him. But he's in no shape to go out, let alone load flooring into the truck. We'll have to wait until next weekend to go. :(

I guess this gives me more time to research. Maybe I could do some checking around the stores in the meantime. :think:

Anyway, I love all the input from you all. I'll try to get some "before" pictures up.

[OnionPatch]

30. Has anyone has experience with this stuff?

http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=2982

Lumber Liquidators is about an hour away from here. We're going to go this weekend. Mr. OnionPatch had to take some antibiotics and is finally able to talk again. :) We're ready to do this.

[Nite Owl]

31. I don't know anything about it

but it is a nice warm color.

Here's a FAQ I found googling: http://www.builddirect.com/Hardwood-Floors-Engineered/FAQ_8804.aspx

And a link on installation (they make it sound easy): http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/knowhow/handbook/article/0,16417,216032,00.html


Actually the search turned up a lot of possible good links to investigate:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-17,GGLJ:en&q=engineered+wood+flooring

It sounds like a good compromise between wood and laminate.

[OnionPatch]

32. Thanks, I checked those out

I read a little more about engineered hardwood somewhere yesterday, too. That type of floor sounds perfect. They're really beautiful, too, but the "floating" kind, which is the kind we would want, turns out to be out of our price range. Maybe we'll put that in our next house, LOL.

So, we got the flooring today. We ended up getting Traffic-Master laminate. It looked nice, was the color I wanted and the price was right. It has a fifteen-year guarantee or something like that. It's sitting downstairs now, getting acclimated. The fun begins soon. Tomorrow I can start busting the tile off of the kitchen floor and tearing out carpet. :bounce:

[NMDemDist2]

33. don't forget to wear a mask! and take lots of pics n/t

[Nite Owl]

34. Good luck

I hate doing the messy projects but afterwards it feels so good to have it accomplished.

Try to take some pics for us!


:)

[Longhorn]

35. I hope all goes well with the lowest level of aches and pains possible!

I know you'll love it when you're finished! :hi: