Pro and Con wood floors.

[brewer12345]

CFB,

Your story is exactly why I refuse to put wood floors in the kitchen.  We have Pergo in the kitchen right now and even that hasn't been impervious to water damage from a couple of busted pipes.  The edges of several boards have bubbled up.  We'll probably put tile in the kitchen when we finally get around to removing the Pergo.  Fortunately, our laundry hookups and water heater are in the garage.  A lot of newer homes seem to be putting the laundry inside the house.  I guess it's a convenience factor but it seems like it's a disaster waiting to happen.

Heh, I have tile in the kitchen now, and it will be going when we eventually remodel. Why? The damn tiles break when I drop something (distressingly often). The holy grail is probably a concrete floor with a drain in the middle...

 

[SC]

. The holy grail is probably a concrete floor with a drain in the middle...

Yes! Stainless steel walls, resin furniture, waterproof TV, and presto - you press a button that says "wash" before you leave for the day, and you come home to a sparkling clean house.

There might be some kinks that need to be worked out of that plan... like the cinder block sized "housewashing" tablets...

SC

 

[brewer12345]

Yeah, and the dogs and cat would have to be corraled away from the aparatus. But still, I like it!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hah. I rented a house and it was owned by a company that made custom tile...the 'factory' was in the basement. The whole house was tile up about to sternum height in every room. We did in fact drag the hose into the living room once and selectively spray it down, then mopped it up.

I understand you can make the pergo a little more waterproof by using some elmers on the tabs before you insert them. Also makes it a little more permanent. For better and for worse.

My dad put the vinyl tile down. Looks an lot like ceramic tile - his looks like granite. It does apply to concrete with a primer that seals the concrete and makes it sticky. He had the devil of a time with the baseboards and whatnot, but it looks great. Less than half the time of ceramic and certainly a little 'softer'. Unlike sheet linoleum, its much more rigid and wont sink or pop over surface irregularities. It will not go down over existing sheet linoleum, however, so I have a huge scraping job ahead when I get to the kitchen...

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Pergo is just a photo of wood. Not interested. Consider parquet. Cheap, easy to install, easy to replace. Looks good.

Our laundry is in a laundry room on the way to the garage. If anything leaks, it runs out the garage door eventually.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

So was mine.

 

[wildcat]

Damn, you guys have some pretty nice looking houses. Thanks for posting, back to my serfdom...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

This little shack? Barely kept the rain off my head...and it sucked to clean the gutters.

The snow was a huge abberation...only happens every 20-30 years or so.

If it makes you feel better, I can post a shot of the little piece of crap I live in now...

 

[wildcat]

Where was this last house - Bay Area?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Next to Folsom Lake up near Excramento. Bought that for $312k in 1996. Second smallest house I looked at :

 

[SteveR]

Very Nice CFB. Lots of maintenance for sure! I put some gutter covers on our house last year...did not want to do that again! Too much of a chore with the trees so close to the roof and no place to put the ladder. Roof slope is very high (heavy snow country) so doing it from the roof is not an option. I think I had to cover about 350 feet of gutter (three levels in some places). It is nice to see the leaves slide off now.


Back to topic:

Current house has white oak floors in the entry, hall, family room and dining room. When I moved in I had a service come and clean the floors and treat them since they were dull and a bit scratched. After 4 tries including one from the top coat manufacturer, it was determined that the original installation was faulty and the sealer used was breaking down.

The cure was sanding down to bare wood, restaining and then resealing. It took a week for the whole process and a couple of thousand $$. The floor is a chore to keep from getting scratched with grandkids and rolling toys, the occasional 4-legged critter and people that have small rocks in treads of their shoes. Throw rugs all over the place help but I really like the look of wood so we are not going to cover any more of it with rugs.

No wood in the kitchen.... see CFB's post to see why. We have quarry tile and it is great even if you drop a can on it.. a chip only gives it more character.
Wood floors and water don't mix well and water will win every time.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I came up with a great way to do gutters and have continued it even with my mundane single story. It was mandatory with that old beast of a house if you look at the backside...it was over 30' from the ground to the roof edge out back

I picked up some thinwalled, lightweight PVC pipe that was the == to the width of an old electric blower...I think it was 3"? Glued some threaded pipe connectors to three 10' segments, male on one side, female on the other, then had a 6' segment with a "U" glued on the top of that. I could screw together enough pipe to make the reach, stick it in the business end of the blower, a little duct tape and a screw to hold that in place, stick the "U" at the top into the gutter, fire up the blower, and out go the leaves.

I got a little more mileage out of this gizmo when I had a huge wasp nest decide to settle in my attic. I took the leaf mulching attachment to the intake of the blower, duct taped the pipe end to that, and sat there for an hour or so 'tapping' the side of the house where they were entering/exiting. The resulting "wasp mulch" was deposited on the front lawn. When no more wasps came out, I gave up for the day. Next day I repeated the process for any stragglers that were 'out' the day before. A few months later I crawled over to that part of the attic to remove the nest. About 3' long, 18" wide and a foot thick...

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Cork. Looks great, the pattern hides little stains and scratches, and seems to last forever. At least that's our experience in the kitchen, and we didn't even seal it.

Or, you can move to where it doesn't snow and you will never get one of these home-improvement attacks again.