Your favorite flooring

[spotty_dog]

So, it's confirmed. All the hardwood on the first floor is getting ripped out. It's time to start the process of picking something new.

If you were putting in floors from scratch, what would you choose? We do live in a 100 year old home with a bit of a farmhouse vibe to it, and we have always loved the wide plank. But we definitely need something more durable and cleanable.

I know some of y'all watch HGTV and/or browse Houzz and/or have floors you love. Tell me what's out there so I have somewhere to start! Solid hardwood? Engineered? Vinyl plank?

We're also going to be putting vinyl tile in the bathroom and we're thinking of adding on to the project by putting some other kind of impermeable flooring in the laundry room. So I guess...there is no type of flooring in which I don't have some interest right now.

[OrionGrad]

Of the options you mentioned, I personally would opt for solid hardwood over engineered or vinyl. I like hardwoods that look like they’ve been here for a long time, so we got hand-scraped oak hardwood when we did our floors in 2016. But really it’s just depends on the look you like and how much you like to clean. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but dark shiny floors show everything. (At least that’s what people tell me.) Our hand-scraped floors really don’t show anything, so they’re really easy to keep clean.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Yes to hardwoods. I’m dealing with tile for the first time in a kitchen and I hate how everything breaks when you drop it. I like the give of natural flooring so much.

My dream is radiant heat hardwoods...


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[spotty_dog]

So, my husband used to tell me he was loathe to get our floors refinished because the scrapes and gouges gave it patina. (We're talking about pinewood that had every dog claw, high heel, and furniture drag etched into it, along with the high-traffic areas completely missing finish and dirt permanently staining the wood beneath...)

But now he says he's thinking something that's a solid surface and shiny -- he actually said bamboo. So...yeah. I guess we're going for something in between "well-worn" and "space-age"? Way to narrow it down, eh?

I do like the look of the intentionally distressed surface. But do you really find it easy to clean? Stuff doesn't get caught in the texture or between the planks? I was really kind of hoping to get away from doing all 1000 sf on hands and knees. :\

[spotty_dog]

Yes to hardwoods. I’m dealing with tile for the first time in a kitchen and I hate how everything breaks when you drop it. I like the give of natural flooring so much.

I practically have PTSD still from the tile in our Phoenix house. Between the way the grout gets filthy and the way things shatter on contact (and gouge the tile to boot!)...ugh. I'm also not a huge fan of the slate in our bathroom, but it's livable. But I did like our luxury vinyl tile that we had in our little guest bathroom for about 13 months. It was a nice blend of give and durability. We'll definitely be putting the same stuff back in that bathroom. But not sure if it's what we want in the laundry, or just a tile-look sheet vinyl (or real linoleum, which I didn't realize they still make).

I think engineered hardwood would feel as natural as solid wood. I just don't know if it comes in more options, or is cheaper for the same look, or what. (From my initial research, you actually can't put radiant heat under solid hardwood. You'd have to go with engineered. Thankfully we don't need heated floors in my climate...)

[alotofyarn]

We put in engineered hardwood and really like it, but if money wasn't an issue, real hardwood might have been nice, especially for a long term house. I think you can get either in a wide plank.

[spotty_dog]

We put in engineered hardwood and really like it, but if money wasn't an issue, real hardwood might have been nice, especially for a long term house. I think you can get either in a wide plank.

Money is always an issue, but in our case the insurance is going to base our allowance on a perfect replacement of the exact same floor -- which, from what I understand, our flooring guy is going to contact a custom lumber mill to get an estimate, because it's simply unique. We expect the quote to be exorbitant. Which means that basically any floor we choose will be lower than that, and in budget.

That said, I'm looking at the catalog for the flooring place our GC works with, and I don't think they do solid hardwood. So that might narrow it a bit for us.

[OrionGrad]

IIRC, you can refinish solid hardwood but you can’t refinish engineered. I’m not 100% sure on that, but I think I remember hearing it when we were deciding.

I can’t vouch for all distressed woods, but ours is very easy to keep clean. No problems at all.

You should also consider if you want prefinished or stained in place. (Not sure how engineered complicates that? Maybe it’s all prefinished??) I love our floors, but sometimes I think maybe we should have gotten unfinished wide plank oak and had them stained in place. It’s just a slightly different look. Not necessarily better/worse.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Our laundry room has carpet. So that makes sense.


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[spotty_dog]

Thanks [MENTION=1924]OrionGrad[/MENTION]. As I'm poking around, it seems that the higher-end engineered can be refinished a couple of times. Of course, if you're paying extra for a special texture, that's moot -- you can't (really) refinish it anyway. Some engineered does come unfinished, but the catalog I'm looking at is all listed by stain so I presume it's prefinished.

That's great about the textured floor not being a problem for cleaning. One of our hopes is to be able to have a shoes-off policy, and not to have this requirement doom our guests to black socks!

[medpedspouse]

We had bamboo installed in our last house because we loved the look and were told it was a hard wood that could withstand the dogs. Not so much. We still had scratches and are not easy to refinish. We also had to install a central humidifier. They were lovely though. Here we have slate...another very lovely but PITA. We chose vinyl for the areas where we pulled up the carpet. Partly because it was dog friendly and partly because of the cost saving....it was a big ass room. I just needed the carpet gone asap. I figured we would chose something else later. Crazy thing is we get compliments on it all the time. I asked our realtor if she thought I had devalued the house and she said she had not noticed until I pointed it out.

My all time favorite floor was the stained concrete. Dog friendly, low maintenance but not cheap. Oddly, it was actually warmer than the tile.

[spotty_dog]

[MENTION=980]medpedspouse[/MENTION] thanks!! This is just what I was hoping for -- "flooring I have known," LOL. What kind of vinyl, sheet? I feel like there are a lot of really nice products these days, and anything is going to be an upgrade from our cracked laundry room linoleum!

[medpedspouse]

[MENTION=980]medpedspouse[/MENTION] thanks!! This is just what I was hoping for -- "flooring I have known," LOL. What kind of vinyl, sheet? I feel like there are a lot of really nice products these days, and anything is going to be an upgrade from our cracked laundry room linoleum!

The vinyl came in planks and has texture to look like wood grain. We actually took a wood plank sample to try to match the color we were wanting.

[SoonerTexan]

It's probably not going to be a good option design wise if you are doing wood in the rest of the house, but there is some really nice wood-look tile out there. If you get a certain kind, you can have it installed with minimal grout lines and it looks pretty damn close to wood. We have it in our master bath, and I really like it. I don't think I would do it everywhere instead of wood, though, for all the reasons mentioned above.

[Thirteen]

The vinyl came in planks and has texture to look like wood grain. We actually took a wood plank sample to try to match the color we were wanting.

This is what we have throughout our house. We got extra floor padding underneath for acoustic and feel. It’s holding up really nicely to dogs, kids, water, and sand. I didn’t purchase, but am glad the seller did. It very much looks like wood, and has grooves.


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