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Laminate flooring?
DH and I are soon to be homeowners (yay!!!) and would like to remove the pet stained wall to wall carpeting that is in almost every room of the house. We plan to DIY laminate, but I am afraid of it being obviously fake or sounding strange when we walk on it. Can anyone offer advice? It would be installed by us on concrete slab 1950s ranch, in every room besides the kitchen and bathrooms.
I found this laminate which looks nice online and seems to have good reviews, but I'd just like to hear some more thoughts on laminate vrs having the carpet cleaned. Hardwoods would be nice but we don't have the budget for it at this point in our lives.
http://cdn.indulgy.com/y8/gC/ED/56928382761054943ELXbdJAzc.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XDQIykpswQw/Toc7F1ty_oI/AAAAAAAABsY/3KfhOwvmQdI/s1600/IMG_5671.JPG
http://www.samsclub.com/sams/select-surfaces-laminate-flooring-canyon-oak/prod2990117.ip
TIA!
Re: Laminate flooring?
It's a matter of personal taste. I personally hate laminate, I find it really cheap and off putting. I much rather walk on a nice berber carpet than laminate floor. Also I don't know what price bracket your house falls under, but I think laminate can get a pass at a starter home/neighborhood, once your house is passed that limit (I am not qouting a price, because it's relative to each area), you need to invest in a better quality material.
ETA: have you looked and priced cork or bamboo, they are not that much more than laminate usually, but look and feel nicer.
We have laminate installed in our kitchen, and we put it in about 3 years ago. We also have hardwood in most of our other rooms except our bedroom and living room (carpet). So here's my take. If you have a pet, the laminate will take more wear and tear and not get as easily scratched. It also takes less to maintain than hardwood. We went with a middle grade one from Lumber Liquidaters (check them out to save some money). However, we have noticed where there are some gouges in the laminate where things have scratched it or we've dropped something heavy on it and it's taken a piece of the "board" out. In order to fix this we will have to tear the floor apart and replace that one board. There are also broken edges of boars near the entrance of the room where my heel has punctured through the top layer.
We are planning to completely gut and remodel the kitchen in the next 5 years. At that time, we will be getting rid of the laminate. It just has not held up as well as we expected. But we are also very hard on our floors. We are looking to replace the 4 year old carpet in our living room, already.
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we have laminate throughout our main floor, our entire basement (We put in this year) and one of the spare bedrooms. I love laminate because it can take a LOT more wear and tear then hardwood, and if you get mid or high quality laminate can look really nice. Our house is 10 years old and I would say probably 90% of people who have come over have asked us if its hardwood. (and we have pets, and are not very good at being "nice" to floors...move furniture around a lot etc). My husband put the laminate in the basement himself which also saved a lot in installation fees.
I would caution to stay away from any laminate that's really cheap...if its priced less then $1 a sq. ft. you can bet its not very good quality. If you have the money cork is really nice, but when we looked at it was more then 3x the price of the mid-grade laminate we put in.
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A high quality laminate will serve you well. Be sure to use a proper vapor barrier and padding under the laminate. There are plenty of cheap laminates out there, and I would avoid them in any high traffic areas. Save them for bedrooms.
An alternative would be engineered hardwood (real wood on an engineered substrate - also installed over vapor barrier and padding.
All of this. A decent laminate will look nice and hold up. If you are worried about sound go fo a thick dense rubber pad and a sturdy laminate.
This might be a stupid question, but are you sure that there's not hardwood under your carpet? I ask this because you said 1950s ranch house. Many many many ranch houses built in the 50s and 60s were wall-to-wall hardwood floors (minus the kitchen and bathrooms). We bought our house this past june-- 1960 ranch with finished basement, and there was a room that had nasty, pet-stained carpet. We checked it out, and sure enough, there was hardwood under it, and it was in GREAT condition.
The neighbor told me that they had carpet in nearly every room of the house until they put it on the market. It's worth checking out first.
This. We had a different color W2W shag in every room of our 1955 cape. Underneath was fabulous hardwood that never saw the light of day.