Real Wood or Laminated Wood Flooring

[KAHLUA]

We are getting ready to re-floor our family room.  The room is 260 sq feet.  Right now it's carpeted and it's taken a beating since we've had Kahlua and the addition of Paxton.  Of all the rooms in the house, we use this room 100 times more than any other room.  This room is connected to the kitchen/eating area (which is tiled).  Oh we also have a pool, so this room will sometimes get wet from the pool when the grandbabies come in and "forget" to dry off.    I would say that most people will enter the door in the family room and walk through this room to get to the rest of the house.  My point is this room takes a lot of wear and tear. 

I want to put laminated wood flooring in this room.  Main reason is the price compared to real wood.  My husband said that real wood would be better.  But I've talked to people and they said with animals and traffice that comes through it would be better to go with the laminate flooring. 

As you all know, my daily routine is to look at the newly posted pictures every day.  I see so many homes with some type of wood flooring.  So I thought I should see what the general concenus is amongst fellow doodle owners. 

Let me know what you think.  My hubby says he will be "open" to listening about the pros and cons from other doodle owners and will take all info into consideration. 

What do you think?  Real wood for laminated wood flooring?

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

Well, I'm going to open this back up to another discussion.  I came upon this older discussion when searching flooring.  While we were in FL in January our water line to the ice maker decided to spring a leak.  Thus, the wood laminate surrounding the refer, into the LR and into the Hallway is now warped.  The way our house is laid out, that means that all of this laminate in the Kitchen, Dining Room, Family Room and hallway will have to be replace.  Insurance adjuster was out last night to start the process.  We had decided that we were going to bite the bullet and replace with hardwood instead of laminate.  However, after going to Lowes today and seeing how easily the guy scratched the hardwood and reading some of the comments here, now I'm doubting myself.  Ideally I would like to tile the kitchen and small hallway.  However, our house is one with the center of the house being all kitchen/dining room and family room with a center fireplace dividing them.  There are no doorways or anything separating them.  So, I'm not sure how a tile/wood combo would look.  I really don't want to go with the laminate again because of the water issue.  The guy at lowes said that if wood got wet it would warp like the laminate but would return to its original form in six months or so.   Any thoughts?

[Wendy and Myla]

We have natural oak hardwood floors in the house (10 years since installed) and I love them!  They definitely get scratched from Myla but I think it adds to the character.  On the other hand we put dark stained birch hardwood in the motorhome and I hate it - it is a way softer wood and because it is stained a darker color the scratches show up immediately!  If you do go with hardwood, I would definitely recommend oak, maple or cherry as they are the harder woods and I would go with a natural stain, so the scratches don't show as much.  The narrower the board width, the less warping will happen if it gets wet - it will still swell though.  I would also recommend that you get "click" hardwood flooring instead of nailing it down so that you can replace boards if you have to and if it does lift up, it will go back down. It is more money, but worth it in my opinion.  We nailed our floor down and my dishwasher leaked and the boards buckled so the nails came out and we had to pull out the boards and replace - you can tell where we did it as we had to remove the tongue and nail it from the top.  We have a small rug covering it in front of the dishwasher so it's not as noticeable.  When I had my dishwasher fixed, they told me I could get a dishwasher with a sensor so that if it started to leak, the water would turn off automatically (Bosch I believe) - that is definitely what I will get when I replace it and I'm hoping fridges have the same option.   As far as regular spills, I haven't had a problem with warping or swelling - my grandkids are always spilling juice or water and I just clean it up immediately.  We live in Canada, so we do have lots of snow in the winter and I just have a 4' x 5' rubberbacked mat by the door and Myla stays on it until the snow is melted (about 15 minutes) whenever she comes in from outside.  Have fun shopping!

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

Thanks Wendy.  Oak is definitely a front runner of choices.  most of our furniture is from the Amish country and is a Quarter Sewn Oak so I just need a similar flooring.  I am definitely going lighter than what is here as the darker floor shows every single AnnaBelle hair (and there are far too many).  I love old farmhouses and the wood floors, so I'm not sure I would mind the scratches and dents.  One of the ones we looked at today was actually a hickory and already had lots of that in the wood to start with.  I think it was a little dark for me, but DH loved it.  Appreciate your taking the time to respond.  My head is already spinning trying to decide.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Tile and can wood mix beautifully.  Put samples together.  Or.... get wood look tile!  :-}

[Brittney & Cally]

Just a thought to put out there but have you ever considered Bamboo flooring? It is very durable and hard. I am not sure about the water though. My parents have it in their basement and had it installed back when I was still in high school and it still looks great

[Tammie Ciesielka]

I have a doodle and I work for a commercial flooring company.  If you get hardwood wet enough, it will warp.  There is no amount of time that will bring it back to it's shape.  Humidity can have an effect on hardwood and that will cause it to swell and go back within months of time.  I have some hardwood from my front door and down the hall.  By the front door I have a throw rug to absorb any water that may come in.  When the doorbell rings my doodle goes running down the hall and slides to the front door.  She has left nail marks in the wood.  You can have the hardwood sanded and refinished but this is not a cheap process and it can not be done endless times.  A good installer can fix a board at a time when it comes to scratches or other defects. With all that said, I still prefer the look of hardwood but there are many laminates out there nowadays that look so close to hardwood and wear well.

[Abigail *George & Juno*]

Most of our house is currently tile, and we've already decided that when we replace the carpet in our bedrooms...it will be with tile. But the kind that looks like wood! Have you seen it? A couple that are friends of ours just put it in their dining room, it looks amazing. Just as beautiful as real wood, just as heavy, much more durable. And we can do a very beautiful modern gray or even a light bamboo look that will match the rest of our house and our lifestyle and cleaning routine. :) our friends have a much more traditional house and went with a hand scraped oak look. It's gorgeous.

[Sally S Miles]

When we installed our laminate, eleven years ago, I was a foster mom for dogs (big dogs) and hardwood was looking like a lot of money and a lot of work. I also have six grandchildren and cats in the house.  The laminate still looks like new, ours is a Hickory look and most think it's wood. I hate plastic anything, but I do like this floor.  It's colder than hardwood, a problem for me, but easy upkeep and I can't find a scratch on it.    If I could afford it, bamboo would be lovely, hard maple is nice - if I were to do it over I would go for reclaimed gym flooring or similar.   I have looked at the Bella wood and others, agree the finish is lacking in durability.

Tile is not an option in my home, I have arthritis and it's cold as well as very hard.   Bottom line is in my next house I want wood, but I can live with character in the way of scratches. I can't live with a cheap finish though.

[Lori, Quincy & Frankie]

We have oak in our kitchen and hall and it has been extremely durable.  We had a lab grow up on it over 12 years and now Quincy gets to drag in his fair share of dirt and wet.  It is very forgiving, and cleans up easy.  

We replaced some of it when we did our kitchen over since we knocked down a wall and re-designed the whole floor plan.  We had the old portion sanded down and then all the floor was sanded and stained.  You cant tell the old from the new.  Plus I  have no problem with scratches as it has 3 coats of poly making it very very durable.  

Unfortunately I was not as smart about my den. When we ripped up the carpet that our lab ruined,  I put in beautiful Bella wood (Tiger eye I think) wide panels that is just gorgeous-except where it is gouged from a friend's high heels and scratched from just everyday wear and tear.   I was attracted to the pre-finish and it was nice to avoid the staining and poly coats we did in the kitchen (a 3 to 4 day process) but it is far too delicate for everyday life. After washing-it really needs to be "polished" with dry rags or it shows the water markings. The red oak is more forgiving.  

So, I would go with stained and poly urethane red oak.  I also don't like the sound from laminate-especially dog's nail clicking!  

So there is my 2 cents.  good luck!