Flooring

[Revlefty]

We recently replaced our living room and hallway carpeting with laminate--and we love it. A couple of throw rugs helps give traction to the dogs. It is amazing how many dust bunnies have come to live in our living room! I wonder where they were before when we had carpeting.

Im glad Imoldernu considers me to be young! When we acquire my parent's mobile home in Florida, we intend to replace the carpet with some sort of hardwood flooring. The sand in their park comes into the house as black grit. You can see the traffic pattern in their off white carpeting.

 

[HFWR]

Originally all carpet, including kitchen and baths. Replaced with engineered wood (plywood substrate with oak veneer) in bedrooms, tile in kitchen, hallway, and bathrooms, carpet in living room.

House feels MUCH colder in the winter without carpet.

Make sure to level sub-floors before installing, or pockets will develop.

 

[pb4uski]

To me it boils down to carpet vs hard surfaces (wood, laminate, tile, etc).

I grew up with WTW carpeting and our last house was mostly WTW carpeting. I like the "feel" of WTW and you can more easily go barefoot. WTW is most comfortable to me.

However, the reality is that no matter how good a vacuum you have it is never really clean. If you ever take up a WTW carpet and the padding you'll likely find a layer of fine dust/silt under the padding.

We have all hard surfaces in our new home (mostly hardwood, linoleum and some tile) and I prefer hard surfaces, even though it causes me to need to wear a pair of slippers in the winter to be comfortable. We live on a lake so with bathing suits and the beach, I think it is more practical than carpeting.

If I were to buy a place in FL, I would prefer tile to WTW carpeting.

And I concede it is to some degree a generational thing.

 

[pb4uski]

...House feels MUCH colder in the winter without carpet....

A nice pair of slippers easily solves this problem.

 

[pb4uski]

....We use a Roomba and find it works really well.....

+1 I keep having to remind DW to think of it as a sweeper and not as a vacuum. Even with Roomba, we still need to drag out the vacuum once every week or 10 days for a more through cleaning.

Has anyone here used a Scooba? If so, I'd be interested in your thoughts as I'd like some trusted real-world views before shelling out $500-600.

 

[pb4uski]

...If it was simpler to maintain, I would prefer linoleum as I like the look of it.

Today's linoleum is very good. We were out of energy and budget when we built our new house and did the entire walkout basement in linoleum (other than one bathroom).

The main area is a very attractive faux tile, and the bedrooms are a faux hardwood. When our contractor came back to finish the base board after the flooring guys had finished at first he thought we had sprung for hardwood or laminate in the bedrooms until he stooped down and ran his hand over it.

Our walkout is radiant heat and the laminate is good from a heat transfer perspective. We wanted tile and may someday tile down there but have been pleasantly pleased with the linoleum and it was much more affordable and a quicker install than tile.

 

[Meadbh]

My current home is carpeted except for the kitchen and bathrooms, which have ceramic tile. My last home had hardwood floors, with mosaic tile in the bathroom (vintage). I can live with either. My vacation property has cork flooring throughout with patterns designed in. It is easy to clean, looks good, and has a slight resilience that makes it very pleasant to walk on in bare feet. Does anyone have cork flooring in their home?

 

[F4mandolin]

I always wonder about how much of this is all in our heads. Everybody used to LOVE carpet.....now hardwood (or similar) is the new thing so everybody needs it. Granite counter-tops are/were in.....everybody had to get it even though there are better (in my opinion) choices out there. Kitchen islands are/were in.....everybody had to get one even if it didn't fit. Decks were in....so everybody needed to get one, even though it's a bigger pain to take care of than just a patio. Something else will be coming that everybody will need to get. Boy...I'm really getting to be a curmudgeon.

 

[eytonxav]

The other thing with hardwood, we get to cover it with decorative area rugs

 

[Bestwifeever]

We recently replaced our living room and hallway carpeting with laminate--and we love it. A couple of throw rugs helps give traction to the dogs. It is amazing how many dust bunnies have come to live in our living room! I wonder where they were before when we had carpeting.

Im glad Imoldernu considers me to be young! When we acquire my parent's mobile home in Florida, we intend to replace the carpet with some sort of hardwood flooring. The sand in their park comes into the house as black grit. You can see the traffic pattern in their off white carpeting.

Won't the sand be even harder on the hardwood? I think this is part of the reason people expect to see tile in a Florida or coastal house.

 

[Moemg]

Won't the sand be even harder on the hardwood? I think this is part of the reason people expect to see tile in a Florida or coastal house.

The problem with tile floors in Florida is when they get even a little water on them they get slick . Tile is probably responsible for most of the broken hips in Florida.

 

[MichaelB]

Our place in Florida has hardwood but in the next year will be replaced with tile. Hardwood makes less sense in such a hot and humid climate. Tile is nice and cool and fits better with the Spanish style architecture that is dominant here.

 

[samclem]

It is easy to clean, looks good, and has a slight resilience that makes it very pleasant to walk on in bare feet. Does anyone have cork flooring in their home?

I'm interested in any answers to this. It looks very comfortable, and I thought about putting it down in the basement (it would have felt warmer than porcelain), but:
1) Most of the "cork" flooring is a thin layer of cork glued to something else (MDF-like stuff,etc). That didn't look like a good choice for a "gonna eventually get wet" basement.
2) The cork is finished with something (polyurethane?), and I figured the flooring would only be as durable as that film, and it wouldn't last forever in high-traffic areas. When it wears out--refinish with a compatible chemical? Do I/can I sand it first?
3) Dents/scrapes: It might be no more trouble than a wood floor, but it seemed that the "give" that makes it so comfortable would also make it more prone to snagging/tearing on a scooting chair leg, etc.

Anyway, I'm thinking of a possible non-permanent cork surface floor covering in a few selected location in the basement (over the tile). Click the cork tiles together, put a tapered wood edge boundary on it. Sort of a firm "cork rug". A bit of a tripping hazard at the edge I suppose.

 

[W2R]

Our place in Florida has hardwood but in the next year will be replaced with tile. Hardwood makes less sense in such a hot and humid climate. Tile is nice and cool and fits better with the Spanish style architecture that is dominant here.

I agree about tile fitting in better with the Spanish architecture.

Here in New Orleans it is pretty hot and humid, and the historic buildings (200+ years old) all have hardwood floors.

Out in the suburbs where I live, most houses were built on slabs, mainly in the 1960's-1970's. Most people have carpet unless they flooded, in which case they switch to tile. Tile is a signal to buyers to check how much it floods there. During the past five years or so many have been installing laminate floors in these houses, I suppose because of the trend away from carpet.

 

[pb4uski]

The problem with tile floors in Florida is when they get even a little water on them they get slick . Tile is probably responsible for most of the broken hips in Florida.

While I see the risk of slippery tile, it depends on the type of tile you have. many are slippery when wet, but others have sufficient texture to be less slippery.

 

[Katsmeow]

I was referring to the laminated flooring which has some type of wood composite substrate like particleboard, MDF, etc. Engineered wood floors are a major step up but also can be problematic when it comes to refinishing. The wood veneer face of engineered flooring is typically only 1/16" to 1/8" thick and some can be thinner than that. Not a lot of wood left to sand and easier to gouge through the face and expose the wood substrate underneath. Before buying, find out how thick the face veneer is and find out what species of wood is used for the substrate. A good, dense species used for the substrate will help prevent dings and gouges. And I would definitely opt for American made engineered flooring vs a lot of the stuff I see coming in from China. There is some good stuff from China but also a lot of crap.

For my own home, I would use solid hardwood flooring if I planned on living there for many years and use engineered flooring if I intended to sell within 5 years or so.

When we bought our engineered wood we researched the refinishing and found that it could be refinished one time. That didn't bother me because we were getting handscraped wood and normally you don't refinish that since it destroys the handscraping.

 

[RockyMtn]

Both homes have hardwoods in main living areas, kitchen's etc. Bedrooms have mostly carpet but one master has hardwood. All bathrooms are tile...non slip type.

 

[Keim]

Our 195? home has beautiful oak floors. We refinished those when we moved in. That covers the living room and hall. Carpet in the bedrooms and basement. Tile in kitchen, bathrooms, and downstairs.

For everything there is a place and a purpose.

I guess you could say we are flooring agnostic.

 

[Sanbenito1]

I'm 55 so I agree with the other 'youngsters' that hardwood is the way to go, both for beauty and easy of cleaning. Unless it's a rental unit, in which case I'd go with laminate and avoid water damage. As a plus, there would be no quibbling with tenants over whether spots on the carpet 'were there before I moved in!'

 

[Tortoise]

We put in Pergo laminate flooring in the public areas like the kitchen, family room, and living room. It holds up better against things that would scratch a true hardwood floor, plus it was pretty inexpensive to install. It doesn't like water, and the area under the dish washer is slightly buckled.

We have large throw rugs in the living room and family room. We have wall-to-wall carpeting in all bedrooms. We have tile in the master bath and vinyl flooring in the hall bath.

 

[Dreamer]

We had carpeting in our house, but got tired of it since we have 5 cats. We tore up the carpeting several years ago and just had the tile floors that were underneath. Thanks heavens, we did not do anything else, because when our DD and her family moved back with us, they had an Old English Sheepdog puppy, that liked to eat things and a cat. Our house is back to DH and I and it is time to remodel. Our floor tiles from the 60's had asbestos in them. We had an asbestos inspector out and he sent them to a lab to be tested. We are sending out a form and the material from the Asbestos Inspector and lab asking for a release to let us do the abatement process ourselves. We are hoping to get the approval and after we have removed it, then we are having hardwood floors installed on our main living floors including 3 bedrooms. We are not having the 2 bathrooms done. If we do not get permission, then we are going to have the engineered hardwood floors put down. Our downstairs is carpeted and the bathroom has ceramic tile. The cats are not allowed down there.