The fellow and I are trying to keep sane during his recuperation by (a) searching for homes, and (b) planning what we’d do with said homes if they became ours someday. (This is with the actual goal of buying a home in the near-ish future - maybe 6 to 12 months from now.)
We’ve found something we both really, really like: Land is our main goal, and this house has 8.4 acres, with another 14-28 acres available at a very reasonable price. It has been on the market for a while, so I assume that the house needs a pretty fair bit of work (home built in 1960, just a basic country house, with a more recent sunroom addition, total of almost 2300 square feet.) Even so, we are 94.7% sure that this is the home for us, and we will likely still be able to afford it even with a major renovation. I love planning projects like this, so I’m researching the jobs that probably will need doing, along with prices, trying to get a feel for a timeline and budget.
Most things, I’m pretty decisive about, but I can’t decide on a flooring option. I can rule out carpeting altogether - don’t want it, anywhere. But what? Cork? Hardwood? Bamboo?
The house itself is built on a concrete slab. There’s a creek out back, and a pond in front, so moisture may be a concern. Southeast Georgia is pretty humid - would cork be a bad idea? (I like the notion - renewable resource, some antimicrobial properties, cushy underfoot.) And will the dogs and kids destroy it? What about bamboo? I don’t really, really want porcelain tile, because it’s less cushy, more slippery, and can be pretty unforgiving if there are any flaws in the subfloor. I guess we could just cut to the proverbial chase and go with stained concrete, but that also wouldn’t be very cushy.
What would you use? Why? Anything you absolutely wouldn’t consider? Why not? Products I might not have thought of? Thanks!
We have a wood-grained laminate flooring much like this throughout our whole upstairs, and I love it. I think the only drawback is that people don’t think of laminate being as good as hardwood (and think of it as being cheap and crappy, I guess); in my experience, however, it’s better than hardwood. After three and a half years in this house, with two cats torking around on it and me dropping stuff regularly, I don’t think I’ve managed to scratch it yet.
We put bamboo down in our last house, and that stuff scratched just by looking at it, it seemed. My sister has white cork in her house, and it’s ugly as sin, and never looks clean.
Anything you put directly on a slab is pretty unforgiving anyway. Maybe use laminated flooring like Pergo. I’d go with regular wood flooring myself, on a wooden subfloor over some foam insulation. You should seal the slab before you put anything down, make sure there’s plenty of drainage around the foundation.
I forgot to say, the laminate we have was already in when we bought the house - if it was up to me, I would have gone with something darker, like this, maybe.
We need to redo our floors soon so I’ve been researching the same thing. We have a cat and 2 chihuahuas, one of which believes his paws are too precious to get wet if it’s raining and has “accidents” sometimes. So that’s my main concern. But also I just can’t seem to get into the whole wood floor fad. It seems so impractical! Same with stone. Not to mention cold in the winter and hard on the feet. I know people who have cracks in their kitchen porcelain where they dropped something. That would be a pain. You can get really nice vinyl now that looks just like stone. I think that’s what we might do in the kitchen. But I want carpet for most of the house. It’s so warm & cozy. I’d rather spend the money elsewhere.
We’ve been living on our new hardwood floor for three years now and the cat, whose claws regularly get Too Long, hasn’t hurt it at all. I did manage to gauge it with the Christmas tree stand. We are extremely happy with our hardwood, but it is on top of a crawlspace not a slab. We live in a place where humidity makes big seasonal cycles, and after the first year the floor began to squeak in places.
We also have commercial vinyl tile that looks like linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms. That wears like iron and comes in a million colors; it does look… well… commercial though, so it isn’t for everybody. It needs to be stripped, waxed, and buffed periodically too. I like it where it is but it isn’t a whole-floor option.
May I also say… four kids and a lot of acres out in the country sounds like an awesome fun time.
Any good quality engineered floor would be fine. No need to put down a subfloor, even on a slab, but you would want to use a free-floating (but locking) floor, over a closed cell foam pad with a plastic vapor barrier underneath.
If you are going over existing wood, you can use any form of (quality) engineered flooring. I see no reason (nowadays) to go with a pure hardwood floor, it just isn’t worth it, and the results are better with engineered flooring.
We have laminate (Pergo mostly) throughout our home which is on a concrete slab. We put it in ourselves over a period of years doing certain rooms at a time as we could afford to. All of it is at least 8 yrs old, some as old as 15 yrs. We did put down vapor barrier and foam first, except for the area where we were covering up linoleum and directions said it wasn’t needed.
It has withstood numerous large dogs and teenage boys. The only marks on it are from human error. Stuff like a scratch from where the pad came off the foot of the sofa and that time I dropped a huge cast iron skillet and it dented the flooring. I think it would have cracked stone or tile, though, so I’m Ok with a dent. It’s really easy to clean up. Kid gets a hold of a Sharpie pen? nail polish remover takes it right off w/o damaging the surface. Painting the walls and some drips on the floor? Let it dry and peel it right off.
Another vote for Pergo. The stuff is indestructable. My old fridge decided to leak for a while before I knew it, resulting in the flooring in several places absorbing water and swelling up.
Fortunately, I left it alone after replacing the fridge and all by itself, as the damp dried up, the Pergo returned to its original pristine condition. I was - in a word - floored. I thought for sure I’d have to replace my entire kitchen floor. You can’t even tell where the warping once was.
I have it in my front door entryway, kitchen, mud room, and my downstairs 1/2 bath - all high-traffic areas. Love the stuff. Looks as good as it did when it down more than ten years ago now.
It’s even better than it sounds, as the parcels we’re after are almost adjacent to my aunt’s and uncle’s farm - another 250 acres or so to explore! And (did I mention this anywhere else? I don’t think so - things have been busy lately!) we recently adopted another dog. Miss Pandora is 3/4 Pyrenees, 1/4 St. Bernard, a bit over a year old, and will have a grand time getting muddy while exploring with the kids. (Yeah, there will definitely be a mud room at the back door.)
Laminate seems like the way to go on the floors. My folks put down a slate-look laminate about 5 years ago, and it has withstood everything they and their dogs could throw at it (or drop on it) and looks as good as day one. My goal is to do it right and do it once, and it sounds like a good laminate, with a high quality underlayment, will suit our needs.
